Don't Let Me Down
by CondescensionJar
Summary: This story isn't a love story, not exactly. This story is about heartbreak, and lost friends, and how cruel children can be, intentionally or not. This story is about friends and enemies, and about choices between right and wrong. This story is about two promises that Lily Evans made to herself as a teenager, neither of which she kept. This story will not have a happy ending.
1. Good Day Sunshine

_Author's Note: I'm writing this mostly because it's what I want to read. It might not be evident from the first chapter, but I'm trying to buck as many stereotypes as I can, other than the Head's Dorms, because really, I just happen to like that idea. It's going to be fluffy at times, but overall, it's going to be pretty heavy. No character is really going to emerge unscathed, because I'm a sadist at heart. I'll try to update once a week, with lengthy-ish chapters, but I'm still at school (and term is starting soon) so I'm not promising anything that'll get in the way of my marks. Thanks for stopping by!_

_Disclaimer: I am a minor and I technically own basically nothing, much less anything Harry Potter related. All characters that you recognize are property of whichever author I've taken them from, and any characters that you don't, well, you're just unfamiliar with whichever author I've burgled, then._

_Furthermore: Chapter titles are, if you couldn't tell, Beatles songs. Either the name of the song'll have something to do with the title, or it'll be something of the soundtrack to the chapter, or something vaguely song ficcy like that.  
_

_Reviews are deciding to just stay under your covers for an extra half hour! _

* * *

**Good Day Sunshine  
**

Lily Evans was, by no stretch of the imagination, what you could describe as a "morning person." She was infamous in her dormitory for being impossible to deal with until after she'd digested her breakfast, and had made more than one person cry for the sole offense of trying to take her too early from her sleep. Today, however, found her up and about, pacing the floor of her bedroom at 6:00 AM, an hour that she usually bemoaned as "too early for any decent human being to be conscious." The reason for her unusual lucidity was simple; today marked the date of her final return to Hogwarts.

She was all at once excited for and dreading her seventh year; excited to see her friends, excited that she was Head Girl, and dreading the idea of job applications, dreading the fact that this was her last year at the castle that she'd called home for the last six years. She sighed and pushed the worry to the back of her mind though: this was her last year at Hogwarts. She was going to make it count.

The thought of the Head Girl badge that lay in a small leather bag in her purse made her smile. It hadn't taken her by surprise per se, but still, it was an incredible honor, and the thought that Dumbledore had recognized her effort and her spotless record filled her with a sense of accomplishment. She wondered who the Head Boy would be; she vaguely suspected Remus Lupin. After all, as much as she hated to admit the influence that they had, the Marauders weren't likely to take orders or discipline from anyone but one of their own, and the idea of any of the others being called to take on the role of Head Boy made her simultaneously laugh and cringe. True, Remus hadn't been incredibly good at keeping them in line as prefect, but he _had_ been prefect, and that was more than many of the other boys in her year could say.

She rather hoped that it would be Remus as Head Boy. He was, after all, her best male friend, despite being one of the Marauders. They'd bonded over a mutual despair over the other boys' antics, as well as a mutual inability to stop them from doing much about them. He was as different from the group's ringleaders as could be, where they were impulsive, arrogant, dark-haired troublemakers who consistently failed to turn in their assignments and could be found more often in detention than in class, he was thoughtful, self-effacing, sandy blonde, and a model student. If she didn't know better, she would have suspected that the only way the other Marauders achieved the marks they did was by copying off of their more studious friend's work, but the fact was that anyone with eyes had to, however grudgingly, admit that James Potter and Sirius Black were by far the most talented wizards at Hogwarts, barring perhaps Dumbledore and McGonagall.

Ugh. Potter. It wasn't so much that she detested him, per se, but more that the entire student body seemed to be split between expecting her to loathe his presence and being surprised that she didn't take him up on one of his many offers to "go out to Hogsmeade some time." If she was going to be honest, her main tactic with the boy was to ignore him when possible, and not let him get away with anything when she couldn't resort to her first plan. The entire school essentially revolved around the boy, his ego, and his pack of childish friends, but Lily really just didn't care. Apathetic, she decided, was the best word for it. _"At least"_ she thought to herself _"he's stopped asking me out twice a week."_

It was true. Potter had spent most of their first five years at Hogwarts trying, with no increase in success, to convince Lily to be his girlfriend, to admit that she loved him, to accompany him to Hogsmeade. Never mind the fact that he was constantly surrounded by a gaggle of silly girls who seemed to be enamored with his arrogance – he had decided, apparently, that he would much rather spend his time tormenting Lily. She'd received more than one casual death threat from one of Potter's admirers, but she couldn't bring herself to take them, or Potter, seriously. After all, he was (as much as she hated to admit it) a reasonably intelligent person; he should be fully capable of realizing that making a hobby of hexing her friends and classmates wasn't really the best way of winning her affection. Thus, the only reasonable conclusion was that he was just being a prat, and the best way to deal with that, was her first tactic: ignore him.

She sighed and checked her alarm clock for what must have been the sixteenth time that morning. 6:08. Ugh.

It was six long hours later that Lily finally found herself on Platform 9 ¾, hugging her parents good-bye for the last time. Petunia hadn't come out to wish her good luck. Lily wasn't surprised, after all, her sister hadn't joined her on the station once, but it still hurt to know that she had grown so far from the girl that she'd grown up laughing and playing with.

"Bye mum. Bye daddy." She gave her parents a smile, trying to reassure them that yes, their baby was going to be okay, that yes, she would be safe.

Still, leave it to parents to worry.

"Be safe, darling" choked out Elizabeth Evans. She was tearing up, finally letting the tears that had been threatening to fall for the last twenty minutes slip down her cheeks. "Write us as often as you can."

David Evans was more composed. He pulled his daughter in closer for a final hug, whispering his only advice into her ear. "Just remember that boys have cooties." He pulled away from her with a laugh, fending off the indignant swat that Lily aimed in his direction. "Only kidding dear. Just... Be careful." His eyes were twinkling by now. "I know how teenage boys can be around pretty girls."

Blushing furiously, Lily turned to stomp off into the waiting train. She made it in safely, dropping off her trunk and turning to head into the carriage, only to-

Oof.

She had turned straight into the chest of Remus Lupin. She brightened. "Remus!"

"Lily" he returned, with a smile. "How's my favorite redhead?"

She looked around. "I dunno... Didn't Molly Prewett graduate a few years ago?"

She laughed, dodging the kick he aimed at her shins. "I'm excellent, Remus." She grinned. She'd kept her badge a secret during the summer; she'd wanted to tell him in person. She rummaged around in her purse, before pulling it out triumphantly. "Look! I made Head Girl!"

Remus didn't even register shock or surprise – after all, who was more deserving than Lily? His eyes began to twinkle. "I thought you might have gotten that, Lily."

Her smile widened. "So? Let's see yours then. This'll be brill, Remus."

His eyes just shone brighter in response, and his grin was, by now, threatening to overtake his entire face. "Oh, no, it's not me" Remus said with a chuckle.

Her hand flew to her mouth; had she offended? "Really? But I thought- I didn't mean-"

He cut her off with a grin. "Don't worry about it. Really. I'm not upset about it at all. It just looks like Dumbledore has a sense of humor."

Lily was about to open her mouth to protest, to ask what he meant, to ask who the Head Boy was, when her answer came in the form of a tall, laughing, black-haired boy who bounded into the hall.

"Evans! Fancy meeting you here."

Potter. She sighed, and turned to face him, doing her best to put a polite smile. "Hello, James" she said, tersely.

The boy grinned in response, his face becoming childlike with happiness. "Oh, is that any way to talk to the Head Boy?"

"Oh very funny" Lily deadpanned in response. "I assume you overheard Remus and I?"

James didn't say a word, he simply reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a shiny badge in scarlet and gold with the letters HB embossed on it.

Lily's jaw dropped. Emotions flitted through her mind until she settled on betrayal. Yes, she decided. Betrayal sounded about right. She felt betrayed, like the position that she'd worked for had become cheapened by her partner, that the fact that Potter, of all people, could be Head Boy diminished her own accomplishments. "Y- you-"

He grinned. "Yeah, Remus had a point. Dumbledore does have a sense of humor." He glanced at his watch. "We should probably get going, we have a meeting with the prefects in about... two minutes." He smirked at her. "Wouldn't want to be late, now would we?"

Lily's sense of betrayal turned into a quiet anger as the pair made their way to the front carriage. Potter talked the whole way there, not shutting up about his vacation, about the things he'd done over the summer with Sirius, and yet, she just couldn't bring herself to care. _"Still,"_ she reasoned, _"he had gotten better towards the end of the year. Anyway, either Dumbledore's finally lost it, or he knows something I don't." _That final thought sobered her and drained away the worst of her anger – the Headmaster had some awfully strange ideas at times, but she'd never known him to be wrong.

And with that thought in her brain, she pushed open the doors to the prefect's carriage and stepped in.

The meeting went well, overall. The prefects had seemed more or less competent, and besides seeing Mulciber and Bellatrix Black there (it had somehow slipped her mind that Slytherins would have prefects too), scowling at her, there had been no real surprises. Potter had, for once, remained quiet, seemingly content to scowl back at the Slytherins and let Lily run the meeting. She'd given each house's prefects their passwords, assigned a rotation for castle patrol, and bade them all find their friends. The meeting had been pleasant enough that she found herself smiling as she watched the last of the prefects say goodbye and leave, even as she realized that she was now alone in a Hogwarts Express carriage with James Potter.

"I think that went well" the boy volunteered as the door clicked shut.

"'Course you do" she laughed. "You didn't do anything."

He grinned at her. "Sure I did. Kept Mulciber in line, didn't I? The great prat."

She frowned. The two Slytherin prefects were notoriously blood-obsessed, she'd had altercations with both of them in the past over her own Muggle heritage. The idea of working with them, the idea that they had power unnerved her.

Either James was more perceptive than he seemed or she was less subtle than she thought she was, because he quickly put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about it. They won't try anything stupid just because they're prefects. If anything, it's easier now for us to keep an eye on them."

Really, on any other day, she would have jerked her body away from his hand, pulled her shoulder out of his grasp, but for some reason, today she really didn't mind. It was comforting, and besides, this was the longest they'd spent in each other's presence without a fight or a proposal, really. It was almost nice – this was a side of Potter that she hadn't seen before, one that almost seemed to be a person instead of a hormonal troublemaker.

Of course, he just had to go and ruin it though.

"That is, if I can keep my eyes off of you" he smirked, raking his eyes over her body, deliberately lingering on her breasts.

She rolled her eyes. "Potter, if we're going to be working with each other, you're really going to have to grow up" she snapped, storming out of the carriage too irritated to apologize when she bumped into Peter Pettigrew and the rest of the Marauders.

The trio of boys looked at each other with a similar expression – Sirius was, perhaps, the best at hiding it, but to any casual passerby, it would be eminently clear that the three were exasperated. It was Remus who finally pushed the door to the Head's carriage open, poking his head inside. "Really, Prongs? You're in her company for a whole thirty six minutes, and you've got to ruin it by making her storm off?"

Sirius pushed the blonde boy inside before stepping in himself and closing the door behind Peter. "You've gotta admit though, Moony, that it's a definite improvement over last year."

Peter couldn't help but smirk. "Yeah, what was the longest he'd gone until now? Fifteen?"

Sirius laughed at the sour expression on his best-friend's face; James looked about ready to hex a puppy. "Seconds or minutes, mate?"

James looked positively murderous. He opened his mouth to return with a caustic remark about Sirius' sexual stamina, when he was interrupted by a hand on his chest. "Calm it, Prongs" said Remus, frowning at the Head Boy. "Wasn't that the whole plan? To calm down and show her that you could be a mature, responsible person after all?"

"Well, _yes_" groused James. "It's not my fault that she looks so damn _alluring_in her Muggle clothes, is it?"

Sirius actually seemed to be agreeing with James, if the shrug and vague nodding were any indication. Remus sighed. "What happened, mate?"

James looked sheepish, a fact that nearly sent the rest of the Marauders off into hysterics. "I, um. I may have insinuated that being around her would be too distracting for me to perform my Head duties" he admitted.

Sirius and Peter lost it. Remus valiantly fought the impulse to join them long enough to manage to say "James, mate. You realise that the Heads have their own dormitories, right?"

James looked horrorstruck. "She's going to bloody kill me by the end of this term, isn't she?"

And with that went the last of Remus' self control, and he joined his friends, doubled over on the ground, laughing at James' predicament.

* * *

Meanwhile, Lily had sought solace in her friends' compartment. She had thrown the carriage door open violently enough that she'd woken Alice and thoroughly startled Mary. Julia had turned happily, not at all surprised by Lily's sudden entrance but then, not much really surprised Julia.

Alice Prewett removed her head from Mary's lap with a start, the latter wincing at the sudden return of blood flow to her limb. "Wha' happened?" she asked blearily. "Someone fall off the train?"

Mary MacDonald narrowed her eyes at her friend. "In all of history, have you ever heard of someone falling off the Hogwarts Express, Al?"

Alice shrugged, her grey eyes crinkling as she did. "Dunno. First time for everything, I suppose."

Mary sighed. "Go back to sleep, Al. You make more sense when you're sleep-talking."

Alice seemed to take this at face value, returning her head to its position in Mary's lap. "'f you say so. Night everyone. Night Lily."

Lily rolled her eyes and took the seat opposite the pair. Mary began running her fingers carefully through her best friend's short brown hair before narrowing her eyes at the redhead. "So, Lils. What's got you in such a snit?"

She sighed. Really, it sounded much sillier when she tried to explain exactly what had gotten her so worked up. It wasn't really anything she hadn't heard before, especially not from James. "It... It's the Head Boy" she ventured. "He's not quite what I expected."

Julia, a rather tall Asian girl with a face set in a permanent goofy smile piped up. "Oh, you found out it was James, then?"

Lily stopped short, turning to look at the girl sitting next to her. "You knew? How did you know? Why didn't you tell me it was him, instead of letting him spring it on me like that?"

Julia's smile faltered at her friend's irritation. "My daddy is friends with Mr. Potter" she responded. "He and his wife came over for dinner last night, so I only learned yesterday."

Oh. Well, that made sense. She sighed. "I'm sorry for getting angry, Julia. He's just still a prat is all. Nothing new, it's just going to be irritating having to work with him." A sudden realization dawned on her – in her disgust with the selection of the Head Boy, she'd forgotten entirely that the two of them would be co-habitating. "And... And having to live with him. Oh Merlin, he's going to be unberable."

Mary looked at her steadily for a few seconds, before asking "Not to... change the subject or anything, but don't the Heads usually patrol the train? I just remember last year, having that slimy git Macnair leering his way up and down the corridor."

The world was out to get her or something. Lily stood up, and distractedly scratched at the nape of her neck. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I'll go find Potter and tell him to quit slacking off and we'll start patrols, I guess."

Once the door had clicked shut behind the vanishing Head Girl, Mary turned to the girl across from her. "You didn't hear about that last night. You owled me about it a week ago, and told me not to tell Lils about it. What was that about? I thought you made it a point to never lie."

Julia smiled happily. "Oh, but this is for a good cause, and you know how I feel about those."

"Explain?" Mary asked, confusion coloring her face.

"James being head boy isn't all I learned at dinner that night."

Mary perked up, leaning forward as much as she could without disturbing the girl fast asleep in her lap. "Oh?"

* * *

Potter was going to give her whiplash at this point, he really was. She'd run into him about twenty seconds after leaving her carriage to find him already patrolling the train. He hadn't even made a sarcastic remark about her having apparently forgotten all about that portion of her duties and had just taken her appearance in stride, shifting about a foot to the left so that there was room for them to walk two abreast.

As if seeing him being responsible and taking his duties seriously wasn't enough shock for her poor heart to handle, he'd apologized to her for his comment earlier. He'd apologized. James Potter. Had apologized.

Of course, her first instinct had been suspicion. She'd tried asking him what he was up to, what prank he was pulling, even if it was Remus using Polyjuice Potion in an attempt to win some sort of affection for James from her, but he'd just laughed it all off, and continued to patrol with an earnestness that surprised even her.

He was seriously confusing her – it was hard to match up any mental images of the immature prankster that she'd dealt with the six years previous with the boy next to her telling off a couple of third years for playing Exploding Snap in an enclosed space.

In the end, she decided to just take it day by day. After all, she wasn't going to look a gift hippogriff in the mouth and start to question why it was that he was suddenly acting like somebody she could potentially work with without hexing into the Hospital Wing, but neither was she just going to accept that he'd suddenly had what seemed to be a total personality transplant. That was just setting herself up for disappointment, really, because this was James Potter, and he lived for his stupid pranks and games. Still, if he was going to act like an adult, she wouldn't dissuade him, in fact, she'd rather encourage it.

The pair continued their patrols with no incidents other than a pair of fourth years who had tried to smuggle a pair of doxies in an owl cage into the school, and a nasty pang in Lily's chest when she saw Severus sitting with Avery and Mulciber, heads bent over, clearly discussing something nasty. Still, as Potter reminded her, "Talking isn't really against the rules, Evans."

It was a rather pleasant couple of hours later that the train screeched to a halt. Already changed into their robes, the two Heads directed the first years to Hagrid, and the rest of the students to the carriages that would take them to the castle. Lily hastened to join her friends, hopping in and plopping herself down next to Julia.

Mary smirked at the new arrival. "So? How were your rounds, Ms. Head?"

Lily responded with a noncommital "Eh. Nothing crazy. Potter seems to have mellowed, or else he's trying something. Either way, it's a nice change of pace, but I'm not going to look into it too much. Still, if he's going to make an effort to get along, I can too."

"Lily, as much as we all love you, nobody believes that you're capable of getting along with Potter" Mary noted drily.

Lily responded by sticking out her tongue, and the topic of the Head Boy was dropped. Alice quickly filled the silence with enough conversation for all four of them, talking happily about her summer trip to Venice and all the dashing Italian boys she'd met.

"Alice," Mary complained as they left the carriage, heading through the great double doors of the Entrance Hall. "Don't you ever get tired of talking? You're either talking or asleep. It's a wonder you're able to get any boys interested in you at all."

Alice grinned cheekily at her best friend. "You're just jealous, Mare-Bear. Don't worry, one day you'll find a guy who's interested in the silent, surly type, and you'll go off and have cranky, mute little children together." She laughed, linked a scowling Mary's arm in hers, and marched into the Great Hall with a smiling Lily and Julia close behind.

Surprisingly, the Marauders didn't try anything too outrageous during the Welcome Feast that year. While years previous had been marked by sudden hailstorms, floods of expanding gravy, and the release of a pack of nifflers, to name a few of the more memorable events, this year was unsettlingly calm. Lily found herself on edge throughout the meal, whipping her head around at any sudden noise, and jumping when the food in front of her disappeared and turned into dessert. She looked around at her classmates and found that she wasn't the only one perturbed by the uncharacteristic calm of the meal. Edgar Bones, a fifth year Hufflepuff, looked like he'd been thoroughly doused in EverItching Solution, and most of Slytherin House looked about ready to be sick with anticipation of something horrid.

Still, the meal ended and nothing had exploded, expanded, disappeared, or mysteriously gained sentience, so Lily decided that her first meal as Head Girl was a rather unprecedented success. She made sure that each house's prefects had each of their first-years accounted for, and was about to head to the Gryffindor Tower when she remembered that not only was she not staying with her house-mates that year, but she also didn't really know exactly where it was that she was staying.

"Bugger" she swore.

Alice frowned at her. "Lily! There are children around."

Lily looked around distractedly – the first years had left, but the second and third years were awfully small. She sighed. "Sorry, I just... It just sort of sunk in that I'm not living in the dorm with you guys anymore."

Mary snorted. "You don't see us complaining... Now James is the one who has to deal with waking you up. We should send him flowers."

Lily just glared at the blonde before sticking her tongue out and marching off in search of James.

The three seventh year Gryffindor girls looked at the Head Girl's receding figure. "How long d'you give them?" asked Mary.

Julia frowned. "What am I giving them?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "I mean, how long do you think it'll take for our plan to work?"

"Oh!" Julia brightened. "Um. Three months? I bet we're going to be really good at it."

Alice frowned and looked between her two friends. "I'm missing something, right?"

Mary just grinned, rubbing her hand affectionately over the shorter girl's head. "Don't worry about it Alice. Just something we discussed while you were asleep."

Alice pouted.

* * *

Lily found the Head Boy with the rest of his Marauders, lagging behind the crowd heading to the dormitories. She marched over, calling out "Potter!" as she did.

For some reason, at the mention of one of their names, the entire group felt the need to turn around. Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Hey Prongs! Looks like it worked, she's got the hots for you already!"

She blushed at the statement and stepped forward, ready to lambast the boy for his words, but Remus beat her to it, swatting Sirius in the back of the head. "Stuff it, you prat."

Was it her imagination, or did James shoot a nasty look at Sirius, before turning to her? Whatever. "What's up, Evans?" he asked.

She frowned, not quite sure how to word her question in the presence of his friends. "I just- Ugh. D'you know where our dorm is?"

He pulled a slip of parchment out of the inside pocket of his robes. "Yeah, I asked Dumbledore right after the Feast ended." He unfolded the note and showed it to her. "Says it's on the floor above the library, behind a statue of Grendel the Really Old."

Peter scratched his head. "We know where that is, don't we? We hid in a broom closet near there from Filch that one time in third year?"

Sirius grinned. "Right, mate, we'd... What was it... Charmed the dungeons pink, was it?"

Peter cut in. "Nah, that was the Halloween prank. We were hiding from Filch because we transfigured Mrs. Norris into a doormat, and he didn't realize until he'd rubbed his boots on her twice, remember?"

Lily rolled her eyes. Typical. You could count on the Marauders to know where pretty much anything or anyone in the castle was, but they had the most childish reasons for knowing what they did. "So, James. You remember where this too?"

James looked uncomfortable. "Um. Well. Yes. Yes I do."

She snorted. "Of course. Well?"

He balked. "Well what?"

"Are you going to show me where it is or not?"

James glared at his "friends". Were they really laughing at this? "Yeah, absolutely Evans. Just head up the north staircase, and I'll catch up in a mo'?"

Lily frowned at the still laughing Marauders before accepting James's offer and turning on her heel. The four boys watched her go, until James angrily snapped "Really? It's hard enough trying to act responsible around her without all of you lot going and reminding her that we're really not."

Sirius snickered. "We? Prongsy, we're paragons of maturity."

Peter smirked. "Yeah. Moony already acts like an old man."

"It's just so difficult to misbehave around him that we might as well give up."

"He's such a killjoy."

"We might as well start calling him Professor Lupin at this point, insufferable do-gooder that he is."

Judging by the look on his face, Remus was anything but amused. "James" he said drily. "Seeing as how I am regrettably not a Professor yet, would you be so kind as to give these two detention for general idiocy?"

"Aah, Prongsy would never do that to his best mates" vowed Sirius. "We mean far too much to him to waste away in detention."

James' expression was even less agreeable than Remus'. "Boys" he managed, forcing the words out around a clenched jaw. "This is my last year here. I have one more year to get Evans. Don't fuck this up for me. Okay?" He shot his friends a filthy look, turned, and stamped off, jogging to catch up with the Head Girl.

Sirius turned to Peter and raised an eyebrow. "If he's like this now, how whipped will he be, d'you reckon, if she actually decides to give him a chance?"

Peter gazed at James' back with a mournful expression. "It'd be worse than that time Filch caught us spiking the faculty lounge's pumpkin juice."

Sirius winced. "Mate, I think I still have scars from that. Remind me why we got caught for that one?"

Peter snorted. "Prongs saw a note that Evans had written McGonagall about our Halloween prank that year, and was convinced that the fact that she'd used his name meant that she was secretly in love with him. He had to stay to read the whole thing, didn't he?"

"... Prongs is a right git, isn't he?"

"Yeah, but imagine how bad he'll be if they don't end up together."

"Point taken, Wormy, point taken."

Remus just sighed and shook his head. "You two are impossible. Remind me why we're friends again?"

Sirius grinned. "You're secretly madly in love with us?"

Remus flushed and swatted the back of his dark-haired friend's head. "Oh you wish. Grow up, you stupid tosser." He too turned and stalked off, muttering darkly as he made his way towards Gryffindor tower.

Peter and Sirius watched as he stormed off. "We're really getting good at this whole "drive people off" business, aren't we, Padfoot?"

"It's good practice, Wormy" said Sirius sagely. "With as many admirers as I've got, it takes real finesse to keep them at arms length, sometimes."

Peter looked at the other boy for a second, before thougtfully admitting, "You know, maybe they've got a point. You really don't take anything seriously at all, do you?"

Sirius made a noise that, coming from anyone else, would be called a giggle. This was Sirius Black though, and he was _far_ too manly for anything less than a chuckle though, so Sirius chuckled. "It's all part of my charm, Wormy. All part of the charm."

* * *

"Evans! Hey! Evans!" She'd moved quickly, or James had been talking longer than he'd expected to. Either way, she'd made it a lot further than he'd anticipated, and he'd had to run to catch up to her. "I- Look, I'm sorry that my friends are a bunch of gits, okay? And I'm sorry again for the train, yeah?"

She turned to him and shrugged. "Eh. I overreacted, I guess. I'm sorry as well. I guess I should be used to it by now."

He looked warily at the girl in front of him. "You're... You're sorry? Geez, Evans, I was expecting a lot more than that."

Another shrug. "I mean, you apologized first. And I saw you making an effort to be less of a git just then, so its only fair that I do the same, right? I mean, we're living together. We're gonna have to learn to get along somehow."

He must be dreaming or something, because really, this was not Lily Evans in front of him. "I... Don't get me wrong, Evans, that sounds great and all, but this is pretty sudden. Where's this coming from?"

She grinned. "I noticed that the Marauders didn't try to pull something big tonight. At first I thought maybe the lack of a prank was the prank, you know, make us all wary over nothing, but then I figured that that was too clever for you."

By the way he was looking at her, a casual passerby might have expected Lily to have sprouted a third arm, or perhaps grown purple tentacles in place of hair. She swiped nervously at her cheek, uncomfortable under his eyes. "Do I have something on my face? What's wrong? Is it my hair?"

James just shook his head. "I just... Wow. You've hated me for so long, it's just such a quick turn-about. I'm a little spell-shocked."

Lily laughed derisively. "Hated you? You give yourself far too much credit, Potter. If anything, you just irritated me. Hating you would have taken up too much of my spare time." She grinned cheekily at him. "You weren't worth it."

Honestly, if it wasn't for that grin she'd flashed him (the first smile of hers that she'd directed towards him in the six years that he'd known her, and yes, he was keeping track) he probably would have been heartbroken right there. "Well, give it time. I'll have you hating me soon enough."

She laughed, although this time it was more with him than at him. "Somehow, I don't doubt that. From what I've seen, it wouldn't take too much work at all, Potter."

"Y'know, I bet you could hate me a lot quicker if you started calling me James. Familiarize yourself with the enemy and all, yeah?"

Lily actually laughed at that. "That really was a pathetic attempt, Potter."

He just shrugged. "Well, you're putting up with me, so that's enough progress for one day, I guess. I'll get you to call me James tomorrow."

She rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Good luck with that."

"Luck is for the weak" James scoffed. "Marauders make their own."

"Oh really? I didn't think you lot paid attention in Potions nearly enough for that."

The banter continued as the pair made their way to their new lodgings. Once the initial shock of a Lily Evans reception to conversation had worn off, James found that she was surprisingly easy to talk to, even if her sense of humor was, perhaps, a little drier and more subtle than that of his fellow Marauders.

There was a moment of discomfort when the pair reached a statue of an ancient, wizened wizard and realized that neither of them knew the password. The two looked briefly at each other, about to ask if the other new the password, when the statue spoke. "The Head Boy and Girl, I presume?" he rasped, in a feeble voice. "Well then. Select a password, and I'll show you in."

Lily looked at James. "Any suggestions, then?"

"Felix Felicis?" He shrugged. "You're right, all I know is the name."

She almost laughed. "This is what you call making your own luck? Pathetic, Potter." She turned, and addressed the statue. "Felix Felicis."

The statue bowed slightly, wincing at the gesture and stepped aside, the wall behind it melting into a door. "Your rooms."

"After you then, Lily" James offered gallantly.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Be still, my heart" she laughed, pushing the door open and stepping inside.

* * *

"Mare? Julia?" Alice asked as the three girls settled into their beds for the night. "What was all that in the Great Hall earlier on?"

Mary glanced at the third girl in the room. "Julia? It's your story."

Julia grinned happily. Letting Alice in on their plans would make it so much more entertaining. "Okay!" She paused, chewing on her lower lip as she tried to figure out where to begin. "Well," she started, "My daddy moved back to Wizard London after momma left, and he met Mr. Potter at work. And they both liked their chips with mayonaisse, so they became friends, and now Mr. Potter comes over for dinner once a month, and sometimes he brings Mrs. Potter, but never James for some reason, and we never go over there, and I think it's because Daddy doesn't like that they have so many house elves." Julia paused to take a breath. "And so he was over last week, and we were eating chicken, and then Mrs. Potter asked if I knew who Head Girl was, and so I said yes! It's my friend Lily! So she asked if that was Lily Evans, and I asked how she knew Lily, and she said that she didn't, and that confused me, because how did she know Lily's last name, so I asked her that. And she said that James talked about Lily all the time at home, and didn't know why Lily didn't like him back, and that he wrote her poetry but didn't send it, which I think is silly, because if you write somebody poetry, you obviously want them to know how you feel, so he should have sent it, but I didn't say that."

Mary laughed. "Tell her the best part, Jules."

Julia's smile widened. "Well, after we ate blueberry pie and Mr. Potter cleaned off the stain where he dropped pie on the tablecloth, they got up to leave, and as they were leaving, Mrs. Potter asked me if I could please point Lily in the right direction so that she could have a non-mopey son back, and Mr. Potter agreed, but said that it might be harder to keep James from messing things up than it would be to get Lily on the right track. And I didn't really know what they meant, so I asked Mrs. Potter why I couldn't just buy Lily a map or a compass, because that would be easier, and she looked confused, but my daddy just laughed and told me that he'd explain later." Julia smiled happily, having completed her explanation of that night's events.

Alice looked confused, a rather common state for anyone who spoke to Julia for too long. Mary, however, was well-versed in Julia-logic, and was able to interpret. "Basically, the Potters want us to play match-maker for Lily and James."

Alice's squealed in surprise, and her eyes crinkled with glee. She bounded over to Mary's bed, throwing the girl into a tight embrace. "This is going to be the best year ever!" she shrieked. Mary grinned contentedly. "Yeah, Al, yeah it is."

* * *

In the Head's Dorm, things were surprisingly comfortable. Lily and James had arrived to find a set of rooms not that unlike those found in the Gryffindor common room. Their (admittedly smaller) common room was furnished with squashy armchairs, and had a small fireplace set against the left wall. The back wall had two doors which lead to the two bedrooms, each of which had another door which opened into the joint bathroom. Lily despaired at the single shower while James turned pink when he realized that they were sharing the facilities.

However, once the intial shock of their shared living space wore off, the two decided that all things considered, their situations could be worse. The dorm was spacious enough that they could ignore the other when necessary, but small enough that it felt rather homey. Both were, by nature, relatively neat and tidy, and as James pointed out, neither of them were Slytherins.

They reached several ground rules rather quickly (Lily insisting that the Marauders could _not _use the dorm as a party-house, and James asking that Lily in turn inform him in advance if she was going to have friends over.) There was all the awkwardness that would be expected of two teenagers forced to live with a member of the opposite sex for the first time, but it wasn't insurmountable. Their interactions were pleasant enough that Head Boy and Head Girl bade each other good night feeling as excited about the coming school year as they had been upon waking.

Lily lay awake in bed for a period thinking of her responsiblities as Head Girl, her classes, her friends, and the looming threat of N.E.W.T.s and of career placement.

James lay awake even longer thinking of Lily.

* * *

Every teenager goes through a period of intense self-centrism, in which they think that their problems are unique, that they are inherently special for doing what they've done, and that their actions would shape the world for generations to come. Sadly, most teenagers are deluded in thinking so. Their problems are, for the most part, banal and unoriginal, they are no more special than the next child (which, depending on your point of view, is either incredibly special or not at all), and their actions have little to no bearing on the world at large.

Lily Evans was not one of those teenagers. She was possessed of a rare maturity that let her take her life day by day, worrying about the people around her more than herself. She questioned whether her actions had any significance on the world, and made no claims, internal or external, to greatness or speciality.

However, whether she recognized it or not (and indeed, she did not) Lily Evans was special, special in that she affected the lives of everyone around her. Think of the wizarding world as a sea, stormy and grey, teeming with waves and winds. This rock represents your typical, everyday wizard – watch as it's thrown into the water. The ripples are lost almost instantaneously in the froth and foam of the ocean, and the pebble sinks to the bottom, lost to history, and unremarkable. Lily Evans was no pebble, no rock. Lily Evans was the _Titanic, _proud and celebrated and taken before her time, only to be remembered forever, as her ripples spread across the sea.

This story isn't a love story, not exactly. This story is about heartbreak, and lost friends, and how cruel children can be, intentionally or not, to those that they hate and to those that they love. This story is about friends and enemies, and about choices between right and wrong. This story is about two promises that Lily Evans made to herself as a teenager, neither of which she kept.

This story will not have a happy ending.

* * *

_Author's Note: I'm really enjoying writing the tiny part that is Peter Pettigrew, for whatever reason. Reviews are warm bread with herbed olive oil._

_Ta,_

_ConJar_


	2. A Beginning

_Author's Note: Yes, I'm taking great liberties with the timeline... There's no way that Molly Prewett was just a few years above Lily Evans, in fact, I don't think that they were ever at school at the same time at all, but... Well, the Marauder's era timeline is fluid? Or I'm just awful at dates and failed History every time I had to take it. Whichever explanation floats your boat. (Or just chalk it up to wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, yeah?)_

_Disclaimer: Still a minor, I still own nothing. Not even like, nothing in terms of the Harry Potter universe; I'm pretty sure that I legally own nothing. Or essentially nothing._

_Reviews are filling a cup halfway with hot chocolate mix, a quarter of the way with marshmallows, and topping it off with boiling milk. And then eating it with a fork._

* * *

**A Beginning**

Lily awoke characteristically grouchy. She woke up in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, and from a quick glance at her clock, it was 7:15 AM. All in all, a dreadful start to a day.

It was only the fact that she had to go to breakfast to receive her schedule that got her out of bed, still yawning, and into the bathroom to get ready for her first day of classes. Scratching at the nape of her neck, she started to brush her teeth as she scowled at her reflection. She pulled helplessly at her hair, unruly as usual in the mornings, and wiped the sleep out of her eyes.

It wasn't until he walked in, wrapped in a towel in preparation for a shower, that she remembered that she had a dormmate.

"Oh" he stammered, his eyes blinking uncomfortably from behind glasses. (Who even wore glasses into the shower?) "Uh... Shit, I'm sorry about that, Evans, I didn't realize you'd be up so early, Mary always complained about how you were in the mornings, and so I figured that I'd-"

She rolled her eyes and cut him off with an outstretched hand. She was _not _in the mood to deal with this. She spat out her toothpaste, rinsing her mouth out quickly. "Oh lighten up, Potter. It's not like I haven't seen a guy without a shirt on before. Just go take your shower."

Lily wasn't entirely sure, but she had a suspicion that James may have been blushing as he rushed into the shower, throwing the towel over the side of the door. Whatever. She washed her hair in the sink (stupid Potter. Stupid bathroom with only one shower), dried it with a quick charm, and dragged a brush through it as best she could. Satisfied with the results, she returned to her room to change. It was then that she realized that James Potter had seen her in her sleep clothes – an oversized white t-shirt and a pair of knickers. This was definitely not the best first-morning-of-class that she'd ever had.

"Great," she muttered, "Just my luck that he wears his glasses into the shower, too."

Her mood stayed (characteristically) sour as she dressed and as she stomped her way down to the Great Hall. She was scowling as she sat down between Alice and Julia and reached for a plate of waffles. "Good morning!" chirped Alice. "How's the new dorm? Are you going to show us around soon?"

Lily groaned. "It's... Well, actually, it's not that bad," she allowed. "The rooms are pretty nice. Pretty similar to Gryffindor's rooms, actually."

Julia carefully watched Lily shrug and turn to devour a waffle. "Lily, what happened?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "Julia, this is Lily. She's always a terror in the morning."

"No, this is different."

Lily scowled. How was it that Julia couldn't understand idioms, but could pick out the most subtle nuances of her behavior? "I'm fine. James just walked in on me in the bathroom this morning, and it kind of freaked me out is all."

Mary snorted. "He what now?" ("See?" said Julia, happy that she'd been right.)

"I mean, I was just brushing my teeth, but I hadn't changed or anything, so he saw me in my knickers."

Alice giggled. "Did he stare?"

"No!" Lily snapped. She softened. "Actually, come to think of it, he really didn't. He just kind of tried to apologize. I thought at first that he was apologizing because he didn't have any clothes on, but looking back on it, it was probably because _I _didn't have any clothes on."

"Oh, he was naked too, then?" Mary asked.

"No," Lily groaned, "He was in a towel; he was getting ready to shower." She loved Mary dearly, but really, she was going to have to kill the blonde at this rate.

"Well," Julia broke in, "Since he apologized, and since you saw him mostly naked too, doesn't that make you two even?" She grinned happily at her solution. "It's all fair this way! Except you should apologize too, Lily."

Lily frowned. "Apologize? For what? I mean, I guess I was a little rude, but it's the morning, you can't expect someone to be polite in the morning."

"He was," noted Mary.

"Ugh. Fine. I'll apologize to him when I see him, yeah?" Lily shoved another quarter of a waffle into her mouth, chewing noisily.

Julia smiled contentedly, and Alice grinned. "Attractive," commented Mary. "Really. No wonder the guys love you."

Lily rolled her eyes. "You can have 'em, Mary. I'm gonna go get my schedule now. You all have yours already?"

Three heads nodded simultaneously as Lily stood up and started towards McGonagall's table.

Julia turned to Alice, a smile plastered on her face. "They've already seen each other mostly naked!" she crowed. "And Lily's not even killing him! This'll be easier than we thought."

Mary chuckled. "Jules, hate to break it to you, but 'not even killing him' isn't exactly a marriage proposal."

"Not yet," vowed Julia. "But leave it to Operation Lames!"

Alice frowned. "Julia, I thought we agreed that "Jily" was a better name."

Mary rolled her eyes. "I just remember voting for Pevans."

* * *

Lily was, overall, pleased with her schedule. Double Potions first period Mondays was a good way to begin the week. She'd made it into every N.E.W.T. that she'd signed up for, which came as no surprise, not with the results she'd obtained on her O. . Looking around, schedule in hand, she realized that first period was about due to start, so she quickly headed back to the Gryffindor table, picked up her bag. She trotted off towards the dungeons looking for her friends – they'd all done well on their O.W.L., well enough that Slughorn would let them in to N.E.W.T. Potions if they'd signed up for it.

She was about halfway to the dungeons when she heard a yelp from behind her. She spun around to see a Second Year Slytherin holding a torn bookbag. Her things were an ink-splattered mess on the floor, and she looked on the verge of tears. A couple of friends milled around her, trying to help, but Lily could see that they didn't know the charms they'd need to repair the bag and clean the books. She was going to be late, but she decided that it was really her job to help. Besides, this was Slughorn; she seriously doubted that the Potions Master would dock her points or even reprimand her if she walked in late.

She marched over and waved the girls friends off to class, before shuffling the girl's parchments and books into as neat of a pile as she could. She wiped her ink-stained fingers on her robes and pulled out her wand, muttering "_tergeo,_" and passing it over the mess. The smears and stains slowly faded, causing their owner to let out a relieved whimper. "Th- Thank you," the girl said, "I- I don't know what happened. I was just, just walking, and then the bag ripped, and then the ink was everywhere, and-"

"Shhhh," soothed Lily, "Don't worry about it, accidents happen. Are you going to be able to get to class on time?"

The girl looked up at her with wide eyes. "Y- You're Lily Evans! You're Head Girl! And you're helping me!"

Lily smiled. "Yes. Yes I am. And shouldn't I? That's my job, isn't it? What's your name?"

"Me- Melanie Greengrass," the girl answered.

"Well, Melanie, are you going to be late to class?" Lily asked again.

"N-no," Melanie replied, her long blonde hair waving as she shook her head, "I- I was just heading up to the library to preview for Transfiguration."

Lily chuckled. "Reminds me of how I was in Second Year. Don't worry, you'll start to hate your classes like a normal student soon enough." She winked at the smaller girl, before pointing her wand at the torn bag, and whispering "_reparo._" The cloth re-stitched itself until all evidence of the damage was erased.

"Thank you!" Melanie beamed. "You're being so nice to me. Most people don't really stop to help Slytherins. Not even other Slytherins," she admitted unhappily.

Lily rolled her eyes, thinking of the Marauders and their vendetta against the House. "Well, I try to not be most people. If you ever need anything, just let me know, okay?" She grinned, before adding, "I have to get to class now though. Slughorn likes me, but I don't want to push it, do I?"

Melanie squeaked. "Oh. Okay. Sorry for holding you up."

Lily laughed. "Really, don't worry about it. I don't think he's physically capable of docking me points. I'll see you around, Melanie."

The smaller girl beamed as she bounced up the stairs to the library. Lily, shaking her head and chuckling to herself at the girl's exuberance, headed down towards the dungeons.

When she finally reached the classroom, there was only one table left. She apologized quickly to a beaming Slughorn, explaining why she was late, and he waved her off jovially, assuring her that the class couldn't really start without his "brightest student". Blushing at the public (but not unwarranted, unless you counted Severus, and really, she couldn't find it in her to count Severus anymore) praise, she headed to the empty seat at the back of the room, noting that while Alice and Mary were sitting together, Julia was nowhere to be found. The two girls shot her a quizzical look, to which she responded with a muttered "tell you later", as she made her way to her seat.

It was about five minutes into Slughorn's explanation of just how gruelingly difficult the year in Potions would be that James Potter entered the classroom. The room quieted when he walked in, possibly owing to the fact that it was James Potter, and possibly owing to the fact that he was sopping wet. He shook a wet lock of hair out of his face, grunted out a "Sorry I'm late" to a bemused Slughorn, and glanced around the room for a seat, his eyes falling on the only empty one in the room.

Lily leaned over as James sat down next to her, whispering "What happened to you?"

The soaked boy raised an eyebrow as he looked her over. "What happened to me? What happened to you?"

"Me?" Lily looked at him quizzically.

"Yeah, hold on a mo'," James reached into his pocket and pulled out his wand. Holding it under the table, he murmered "_Muffliato_" and stashed his wand away again. "You're covered in ink or something."

"I... I am?" Lily reached into her potions kit and retrieved her silver knife. She held it up and used its blade to examine her reflection. It was true, her hair had a streak of black ink in it where she must have tugged at a lock of hair, and her face had several smears. She looked down and saw that her robes too were fairly sticky, and that there was a small patch of black on her red and gold Gryffindor tie.

"Oh. Some Second Year had a burst bookbag," she explained, "I helped her clean up. You?"

"Water fountain exploded next to me," replied James. "Fourth Year Hufflepuff. Screamed like a banshee when it blew." He took in her disapproving glare for a second before hastening to add, "I didn't do it! I fixed the thing up. I swear it wasn't me."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Right. Well, Slughorn's still not actually teaching us anything important right now, so I guess it's as good a time as any to apologize for this morning."

"This... This morning?"

Lily flushed. "Yeah. Um." Her blush deepened. "Merlin, I'm not sure what to apologize for, but I told Julia I would, so... I guess I'm sorry for seeing you in a towel? And being rude about the whole thing?"

James looked utterly bewildered. "Evans, you are the most confusing skirt I've ever met."

"How d'you figure? I'll take that as a compliment, by the way."

"This morning I thought you were going to hex my bits off for seeing your knickers, but you just made a joke and now you're apologizing."

Her face threatened to match her hair in terms of hue. "Well," she clarified, "I'm not saying hexing didn't cross my mind, but you didn't do anything wrong and you apologized, so it really wouldn't have been fair, would it have?"

He shrugged. "Hey, I'm not complaining. I rather like my bits where they are."

They sat in silence for a while, listening to Slughorn explain exactly _how _difficult it would be to achieve high marks on the essays this year, something about "stringent policies regarding means of citation" and "high expectations of your academic ability" which the pair decided to simply tune out. It was after a few minutes of this that Lily broke the silence. "So. You like what you see then?"

James ears turned bright red, and he started to sputter. He wasn't really forming coherent words, rather, he was trying to disavow any knowledge of just what Lily Evans looked like in a t-shirt and knickers without insulting her looks, and failing miserably. It wasn't until he looked over to see her biting her lip to keep from laughing that he realized that she was making fun of him.

"Oh shut up," he grumbled, ears still flaming.

"Really though," Lily snickered, "I take it by your lack of a proper answer that you think I'm pretty good looking."

James rolled his eyes. "Now, I wouldn't go that far, Evans. It's like when someone falls off their broom. You don't want to watch but you can't just tear your eyes away, can you?"

"Ouch," she pouted playfully, "Keep complimenting me like that, and I'll think you fancy me or something."

James paused for a second, his expression inscrutable, before snorting. "Wouldn't want that, would we? Maybe I ought to collect some more evidence before I pass judgement then."

"Oh, keep dreaming Potter," Lily reprimanded as she turned back in a huff to watch Slughorn's lecture. Still, James couldn't help but notice that she was smirking as she took her notes. He decided then that he liked this Lily, the Lily that teased him and apologized to him and kept him laughing much more than the one he'd encountered years previous, the Lily who'd ignored him and made it clear that she rather loathed him.

Class ended without any more interaction between the pair. James had, towards the end of it, resigned himself to paying attention to Slughorn's lecture. After a few minutes though, it became clear that nothing of substance was going to happen in Potions that day, so the boy just decided to doodle and daydream. So engrossed was he in his depiction of the Marauders in full pirate regalia that he didn't even notice that class was ending. Lily tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped. "Potter," she snickered, "Class is over, so you can stop being a bookworm taking notes and get to lunch, yeah? Not like you to forget about a meal."

He grinned sheepishly. "Sorry Evans. Forgot you were there. You startled me."

It was, he remarked to himself as the class filed out of the dungeon, the first time he'd ever not been acutely aware of Lily Evans' proximity. He wondered vaguely what that meant.

* * *

Mary and Alice were waiting for Lily by the time she'd made her way out of the classroom. "What happened, Lils?" asked Alice. "It's not like you to be late to class. And you're all... You're all black." Alice poked Lily's side gingerly. "Is that ink?"

Lily sighed. "It is. Some Second Year's bag burst, and no one else seemed like they were going to stick around on the first day of class to help out. Hold on a sec." She pulled out her wand and carefully cleaned off her robes and face before shrugging. "Anyway, no harm no foul, I got her stuff sorted, Slughorn likes me too much to dock points for lateness, and besides, I could have cut class today and not missed anything important."

The three girls had left the dungeons and were turning a corner on the second floor when they were joined by Julia, who quickly fell in step with her friends. "Hi!" the tall girl chirped. "How was Potions?"

"You didn't miss anything," confided Lily, "Slughorn was just being dramatic as usual, trying to wind up anybody he could with talk about N.E.W.T.s."

"Where does he put the key?" Julia wondered out loud, "Because usually it goes in the back, but I've seen some where the key goes into the top of the head." Julia got on her tiptoes and peered at the top of Lily's skull. "You don't have a hole in your head, Lily."

Lily's brow furrowed in confusion, but the girl chose to disregard Julia's confusing spiel. "So what happened to you?" she asked instead, "Did you drop Potions or did you just feel like skiving off?"

Julia's face was inscrutable. "No, I'm signed up for Potions, it's just- I- I had other things to do" she said quietly. "I..." She turned abruptly on her heel and walked off in the opposite direction, leaving a bewildered trio behind her.

"What... What was that about?" asked Lily, stopping to stare at the space that Julia had just previously occupied.

Alice turned to Mary and gave her wink. The blonde grinned in response, before poking Lily's side. "What?" the girl yelped.

"I'm hungry," Mary said, "Julia's just being Julia. C'mon, I've missed Hogwarts lunches."

Lily rolled her eyes, but acquiesced, starting off towards the Great Hall.

"Lils?" asked Alice carefully, following closely behind the red head. "What were you and James talking about?"

"What?" replied Lily. "Just... I don't know, stuff? Why?"

"It's just..." Alice chewed her lip thoughtfully, trying to figure out how best to describe her curiousity. "It was the longest conversation that I've ever seen you two have. And Mary and I kept looking over, but you seemed too interested in what he had to say to notice that we were watching." Alice shrugged. "So I just wanted to know what you were talking about."

"Oh." Lily turned her green eyes upwards as she thought. "Let's see... I asked him why he was wet, then he asked me why I had ink all over me, then I apologized for snapping at him this morning." She thought for another second. "Yeah, that's about it."

"Okay" said Alice. She turned to Mary behind Lily's head and grinned. "So you two are getting along now?"

Lily shrugged. "Honestly? He's a pretty nice guy when he's not thinking about himself. And it's kind of funny the way he puts his foot in his mouth and then trips over it trying to apologize. As long as he doesn't go back to being a prat overnight, I think we can get along."

"Oh brill," said Mary, with relief evident in her voice. "It was such a pain being both of your friends what with your ignoring him and his being convinced you hated him."

"I never hated him!" Lily protested. "He was an arrogant git, so it was easier to just ignore him than get into a shouting match every time he acted like a prat."

"Whatever. As long as you two are getting along, I don't really care. It's just easier if all of my friends can at least be in the same room without glaring at each other."

The three girls slowly made their way into the Great Hall, chatting as they did before settling down in their usual place at the Gryffindor table. Surprisingly, Julia was waiting for them. "Hello," she said mournfully. "I was going to avoid you, so I went back to the dorm, but there was a letter for Lily on my bed, and I decided I was hungry, so I came down instead." She looked at Lily. "I brought your letter, so you can't ask me where I was this morning."

Such demands weren't that strange, coming from Julia. She was usually exceedingly agreeable, but once she decided that something had to be her way, it was quite the task to convince her otherwise. "Fine by me Jules," she agreed. "Let's see this letter, then, see if it's worth the price you're asking."

Julia reached into her hand-embroidered bookbag and pulled out an envelope of heavy, creamy paper. Lily glanced quickly at the Black family crest that adorned the wax seal and grinned – she'd been waiting for this.

_Dear Snake-Soul, _it began.

_Congratulations on Head Girl! Carrying on the legacy, I see. Not that you could ever live up to my standards, but it'll be a laugh to hear about you trying. I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier, but really, you deserve it. I've been so busy with _not _being at Hogwarts! It was so strange knowing that all of you were on the train back without me._

_Oh, speaking of boys - you remember Lucius, right? He graduated two years before me? Well, I started seeing him over the summer, and he's lovely. Kind, courteous, smart, cute, and, I mean, it's kind of a minor point, but he's also filthy rich. Not that that's important or anything. But I digress, we were talking about you and your life, not my boyfriend. (Boyfriend! I love saying that. Or writing it. Same thing. Boyfriend. Aaah. Bliss.)_

_Back to you though – how was your summer? Is Petunia still being jealous and impossible? I know how it feels to lose a sister, even if our situations aren't really the same. I'm forced to stay away from Andromeda, whereas Petunia's just being, well, impossible._

_Speaking of family, don't let my cousin give you any trouble! Tell him that if he gives you a hard time, he'll have me to answer to (even though he might not actually find that threatening. Oh well.) Sirius, I mean. Regulus is too mindful of authority to try anything. He always was eager to please. Tell them both I say hello._

_Write me back sooner than I wrote you? Tell me what's going on at Hogwarts! Who's Head Boy? Is he cute? (He can't be worse than Macnair was.) What classes are you taking? What are your plans for after school? D'you have a boyfriend yet? Tell me everything. I feel so out of the loop, and you're probably only on the train as I write this. Ugh. Being old sucks._

_Lots of love,_

_Pigeon_

_Oh, PS: I didn't know where the Head's dorms were, so I just sent Norah to Gryffindor tower. I hope this letter finds you okay. Actually, if it didn't, you wouldn't be reading this, so I guess it's a non-issue. Okay! Bye for real now._

Lily's smile was enormous. Affection for her friend bubbled through her as she quickly read through the letter. She and Narcissa Black had become friends in Lily's third year, when the two of them refused to be impressed by the Marauder's attempts to make every book in the library sing their text. Lily had found the girl to be warm, engaging, and incredibly talktative, and really rather nice. They'd hit it off quickly, and had been friends ever since. She'd written Narcissa over the summer, when she'd gotten her Head Girl badge, and had been surprised that she hadn't received a more prompt response, although from the sound of it, this boyfriend of hers had been occupying her time.

"Thanks for this, Julia," she said happily, "I'd been waiting for this."

Julia was, predictably, back to all smiles. "Why do you call her Pigeon?" she wondered, having read over Lily's shoulder. "And why does she call you Snake-Soul?"

Lily laughed. "Her Divination teacher fifth year told the class that "Eyes are the windows to the soul", and she said that my eyes were Slytherin green, so that's where Snake-Soul comes from. And her name's Narcissa, yeah? So I called her "Narc" for a bit, because "Narcissa" was too long, but she didn't like that, so I had to come up with something else." Lily shrugged. "To narc means to tattle, and you call somebody who tattles a stool pigeon, and that just kind of stuck."

Julia shook her head. "You guys are silly. That's too complicated for a nickname. You should call her Sis and she should call you Tiny."

"Tiny?"

"You know, like how people say lil' instead of little? And you're Lils!" Julia beamed, happy with her creativity. "Tiny!"

"Just because you're like, some 180 cm giant, Julia" grumbled Alice. "Don't have to rub it in to the rest of us."

"Aah, don't listen to her, Julia. She's just upset that she keeps getting stepped on, aren't you, Al?" Mary teased.

Alice stuck her tongue out at her friend, and returned to her tomato soup, slurping intentionally noisily.

Julia reached out a hand and patted Alice's head. The girl slumped forward and scowled while her tormenter beamed.

Lily, amused, watched her friends for a minute or so before standing up. "Well, we've got a bit before Charms starts, so I'm going to pop over to the library and figure out what I'm going to say to Pigeon. I'll see you all at class. Save me a seat, Jules?"

As soon as the Head Girl had walked out of earshot, the other three Gryffindor girls huddled closer together. "Round one was a success!" crowed Alice happily. "Are we going to try again for Charms?"  
"Lily should be late of her own volition," Mary reminded the girls, "She always takes a long time writing letters."

Alice nodded. "Right. Then I'll hold James up, Mary you hold me a seat and..." She turned to Julia. "Jules, you sit next to whichever Marauder is alone, so that Potter can't get out of this."

The other two girls nodded their assent, and Alice glowed, all traces of her irritation with her height banished by the prospect of match-making.

* * *

_Pigeon, _Lily's respsonse started.

_It's the weirdest feeling being a Seventh Year. How long did it take you to get used to this, used to being the oldest in the Castle, and about to leave, and all this? Actually, don't answer that, I don't want to know._

_And about Lucius - Congratulations! I'm so happy for you – he was in Slytherin as well, yeah? I don't remember much about him, after all, he was three years above me, but I remember Sev saying good things about him, so I'm sure he's wonderful. _

_My summer was uneventful, actually. Getting my badge was by far the most exciting thing. Did you know that Petunia's getting married? Married. Imagine that. Her boyfriend looks like a walrus, it's actually rather awful. He's such a boor. Still, she loves him and he makes her happy, so I guess that's what's important, yeah?_

_Actually, speaking of your cousin, you'd never guess what the Marauders pulled at the Welcome Feast this year. Go on, guess. I'll wait._

_Nothing. They actually did nothing. Did something happen over the summer that would have made Sirius decide to take it all down a notch? Or is this new change of heart of Potter's rubbing off on him?_

_Oh yeah, speaking of which, James Potter's Head Boy. I know, who would have thought? My first reaction was surprise and shock, and yeah, I guess I was a little angry, but I guess Dumbledore knew something that I didn't, because he seems to have mellowed a lot. As in, not every sentence out of his mouth is about himself, and he's actually apologized to me a couple of times for things that weren't even really his fault. Pigeon, I swear that this school has gone crazy without you._

_No boyfriend yet, but if I find a guy I like, I'll let you know, yeah? I don't know, it just seems so tacky to latch yourself onto somebody at school. I mean, how many of these school time relationships go the distance? Not many, I'd imagine._

_Hugs,_

_Snake-Soul_

Lily signed her letter with Narcissa's nickname for her, and folded the parchment carefully, stashing it away in her bookbag. She started to make her way out of the library to get to class, and was rounding a corner when -

"Oof," she grunted. "No running in the halls. Filch might catch you, and it wouldn't be pretty."

"Oh don't worry about me" came a familiar voice. Lily looked up to see who she'd run into, and found herself staring into the eyes of James Potter. "I've got experience getting away from the Squib. I was looking for you, actually; Alice told me to check on you, to make sure you're not late again."

"Oh bugger. What time is it? How long've we got to get to class?"

"Well I didn't really know where you were, so..." He checked his pocket watch. "Uh, class started four minutes ago."

A couple of seconds passed in silence as Lily stared at James in disbelief before she shook her head and shrugged, saying "D'you think Flitwick would buy the "Official Head Business" excuse?"

James chuckled at the suggestion. "Maybe if we walked in soaking wet or covered in ink, it'd be more believable."

Lily grinned wickedly. "_Impervius_" she muttered, pointing her wand at her bookbag. She stepped back from a confused looking James Potter, before turning her wand on him and clearly enunciating "_aguamenti._"

A great spray of water erupted from the tip of Lily's wand, utterly drenching the Head Boy. "What was that?" he demanded, spitting out a mouthful of water.

"It was your idea," she shrugged innocently, "Make it more believable, no?"

* * *

A soaked Head Boy and Girl eventually made it to Charms fifteen minutes late, having been unfortunately detained, Lily explained to Flitwick, by a series of exploding taps in the third floor girl's lavatory. She suspected Peeves, she whispered confidentially, before dragging the Head Boy to sit down in the back of the class room. The two sat down and, wiping their soaking hands off as best they could on their drenched robes, began to take notes as Flitwick returned to his lecture on the Protean Charm.

"This isn't working," Lily muttered after a couple of minutes, pushing away a ruined sheet of parchment. "I'm still dripping and I can't even hold the quill properly. _Muffliato_" she said quietly, after pulling out her wand. "This isn't going to become a habit or anything is it? The muffliato in class, I mean?"

James shrugged. "Sirius and I used to do it pretty much every day."

"How you two manage the marks you do, I'll never know." She picked helplessly at her sopping robes, before groaning. "Honestly, I keep forgetting I'm a witch." Pulling out her wand, she performed a hot-air charm, drying her hands and robes off. She shook her head sadly. "Wish I could dry my hair without it getting all frizzy."

"Aaah, forgot about that one" James admitted. "Do me?"

Lily raised an eyebrow at the statement, but dried out the boy's outstretched hands, passing her wand over his body to dry out his robes. "Cheers," he said. "My hair?"

"Leave it that way," she grinned, "It's neater than I've ever seen it."

"You like neat hair?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Nah, it's just nice to not see you running your hands through it every twelve seconds."

"I'm not that bad," he protested.

The Head Girl snorted. "You don't even realize you're doing it anymore, do you? Look." She tilted her chin towards his forehead, where his fingers were running carelessly through his hair. "You're doing it now."

James blinked, pulling his hand out of his hair and staring at it, as if he couldn't for the life of him figure out whose hand it was attached to the end of his arm. "How often did you say I do that?" he asked carefully.

"I probably exaggerated," she admitted, "How about we just have a code-word? I'll yell it at you whenever I catch you doing the hair thing."

"Works for me. What's the word?"

"Arrogant toe-rag?" she suggested innocently.

"Vetoing that," he scowled. "Try again."

"James Black."

"No."

"Bird's nest?"

"What?"

"You know, 'cause your hair looks like a bird's ne-"

"Vetoed."

"Hey you stupid tosser, you're doing that thing with your hair again?"

"Bit of a mouthful, innit?"

"I give up. You pick one."

James thought about it for a second, scratching at his chin. "We could just go with something abstract? I kind of fancy the idea of you just yelling "buttercup" or something at me every few minutes."

Lily snorted. "Only if we agree to not tell Sirius what's going on."

"Oh, it'll drive him mental," James sighed with satisfaction.

Lily snickered and leaned back in her chair happily.

"Er," said James after a few seconds of silence, "Not to reinforce the image you have of me or anything, but what's Flitwick been going on about?"

"Protean Charms," Lily replied, lazily waving her hand in dismissal of the lecture.

"Right. Weren't you going to take notes or whatever?"

"Why? Were you going to ask for a copy?"

"No, I mean, isn't that your thing? Taking notes and being a good student and all?"

Lily shrugged. "I'm good at Charms. I learned this stuff on my own in fifth year. Flitwick knows that I'm not really learning much in class, so I sort of just sit here."

"Evans, my illusions of our Head Girl are just tumbling down around me."

"How d'you figure?"

James smirked. "Well, in the space of today, you've been late to both your classes, you've sat in the back of them chatting, you've attacked the Head Boy with water and then lied to the professor about it, and just now you've admitted that you don't pay attention in class."

"Maybe you're a bad influence?" Lily suggested.

"Me? I don't know what you're talking about" James sniffed haughtily. "I'll have you know that not only am I Head Boy and Gryffindor's Quidditch Captain, but I also maintain near-perfect grades and an active social life. There is no time for any shenanigans in the life of James Potter."

"Right, and I'm a half-troll Slytherin who plays for Puddlemere."

James winced. "Puddlemore. But everything else there sounded about right."

"Again with the compliments, Potter. Smooth talk like that, and a girl'll think you fancy her."

James just shrugged. "Well, feel free to jump to your own hasty conclusions."

Lily snorted. "Right Potter. Your affections for me aside, where'd you learn about Protean Charms?"

"Haven't, yet."

Lily blanched. "Really? I just figured... Really? Oh Merlin, I'm sorry for distracting you, I'll just shut up so you can pay attention."

"Evans, you really don't know how the Marauders work at all, do you?"

Lily gasped, eyes wide in sudden realization. "So you do just skive off of Remus! I knew it!"

James looked at her blankly. "What? No. What? That's not it at all. Remus wouldn't let us copy if we asked, and believe us, we don't."

"So by "Marauders" you mean what, you, Black, and Peter?"

"Well, Peter's kind of a moron, actually, so just Sirius and I."

"Right. So you skive off of Peter, then?"

James snorted at the suggestion. "You'll know the day we do that when our Transfiguration essays start to be about Goblin Warlords and our Charms work ends up turning teacups into lanterns. The bloke's a lost cause; Remus spends more time fixing Pete's homework than he does doing his own. Nah Sirius and I, we just wing it."

"You... You wing it" Lily repeated weakly.

James shrugged. "Charms and Transfiguration are mostly just built up on what you've learned before, yeah? So it's not that hard to do. Only class that takes a bit of prep is Potions, but only since Slughorn's been making us test the stuff we make." He chuckled. "Sirius had, eh, an accident last year that we're not keen to replicate."

Lily let out a feeble chuckle. "Potter, honestly, if you're serious about that, I really haven't given you enough credit for the past few years. That's... That's brilliant, that is."

James scoffed at the suggestion. "Evans, you beat us on every exam we sit."

She rolled her eyes. "Well yes, but my way takes a bit of hard work and loss of sleep. You and Black are... Wow. Winging it. That's something else."

She sat back quietly, having said all that she cared to. After watching her carefully for a couple of seconds and deciding that he wouldn't be getting much conversation out of her for the rest of the class period, James turned to Flitwick with a sigh, trying to catch the end of the lecture for lack of anything more entertaining to occupy himself with.

* * *

Lily walked into the Great Hall having just gotten out of Ancient Runes – a class that she shared only with two Hufflepuffs that she'd never really talked to, and a quiet Ravenclaw girl who'd somehow managed to get into N.E.W.T. Runes as a Fifth-Year. She made her way to her usual spot and took her seat: between Mary and Julia, with Alice to Mary's left. When she sat down, the Asian and the blonde were locked in fierce debate.

"Eggs are better fried," Alice insisted, "Because then you can dip bread in the yolks and it tastes better that way!"

"No," Julia argued, "Scrambled eggs are the best because you can eat them with spoons."

"But they're all chunky and gross!"

"Fried eggs are too slimy."

Lily looked at Mary and raised an eyebrow questioningly. Mary sighed. "Honestly, Lils, you know how they are." She lowered her voice conspiratorially and added, "I told them that hard-boiled eggs were the best because you got to peel them, which is fun, but they just won't listen."

Lily chuckled and happily dug into her vegetable soup while listening to the two girls debate the virtues of various styles of prepared breakfast foods. She felt, in that moment, utterly content, surrounded by the happy chatter of her friends, with a warm bowl of food in front of her.

Of course, as is the case at any school, contentment was short lived. Lily's good mood lasted all through dinner, as she heard, but did not listen to, Alice's and Julia's argument. It lasted through her walk to the Gryffindor Tower, where she bade her friends good night, and she whistled all the way back to her own dorms, stopping only to give the password (_Felix Felicis_) to the elderly statue.

It lasted, essentially, until she began her homework.

It wasn't that the Protean Charm was hard to perform; it was more that since the class had been unable to grasp the theory and techniques behind the complex spell, Flitwick had asked the Head Girl to create enough charmed clay tiles for everyone in the class to work with. She understood how the magic functioned, and she knew how to work it, but it was tedious work, and was given to her on top of everything else she'd been assigned that day. Furthermore, Charms was the most populated class in the school – every Seventh Year was taking it, which meant that Lily had some thirty-five tiles to spell, each of which had to be done individually.

An hour or so into her task, James entered the Common Room, crossed over to one of the armchairs by a window, and pulled out a thick volume on Quidditch strategy. She wondered vaguely where he'd been, as she hadn't noticed him at dinner, but the majority of her concentration was devoted to the finicky magic that she was performing.

"Twelve down," she grouched, before Summoning another tile from the bag that Flitwick had provided her. At least it was quiet – even though it was a shared space with James Potter, the Head's Common Room was much, much quieter than the Gryffindor Common Room, or even her old dorm; Alice had a habit of humming tunelessly to herself while working, and six years of it had all but driven Lily insane.

She closed her eyes, concentrating hard on the intricate spellwork. Waving her wand over one of the completed tiles, she traced a complicated rune, muttering incantations under her breath. She turned her wand to the fresh tile, and repeated the motion, albeit in reverse. The whole set of tiles glowed briefly with a pulsing yellow light, before fading back to their original dull grey.

"Thirteen."

The room's silence was punctuated only by the occasional rustle of a page, by Lily's counting, and by the clatter of the clay tiles in the bag.

"Fourteen."

James sighed. He'd been listening to Lily's passive aggressive counting for about half an hour now, and although he was loathe to disturb the otherwise silent space, he couldn't just sit and read, not with her in the mood she was. "What's all that, Evans?" he asked from his armchair across the room.

"Charms," she groused, "Flitwick wants me to provide examples of the Protean Charm, because our class didn't understand it."

"Right. And how many do you have to go?"

"Thirty five less fourteen... Twenty one left."

He groaned. "At this rate, you'll be- Hang on, is he having you do the essay, too?"

She rolled her eyes. "Don't remind me. As if this isn't tedious enough, eighteen inches on a charm I've been doing for as many months?"

James chuckled. "Right. D'you want help with that, then?"

"The charm or the essay?"

"I don't think our handwritings really match up, Evans."

"I thought you didn't know the Protean?"

"How hard could it be to learn?"

"Too hard for our class, apparently."

He grinned. "Try me."

Lily levelled a careful look across the room at the Head Boy before shrugging her shoulders. "Eh. If you're offering help, I won't pass it up. Come here and pull up a chair. It's all in the wrist, see? The rune has to be exactly the same, but which one you choose depends on what properties you're using the charm for..."

* * *

Back in Gryffindor Tower, the team assigned to Operation Lames/Jily/Pevans was having a clandestine meeting. (Read: They were in their room, and had put an unnecessary Silencing Charm on the door.) Alice had a serious look on her face as she declared a state of emergency. "Lily never even came to dinner!" she wailed, panic creeping into her voice. "I haven't seen her since Flitwick held her back after class! She might be snogging James and not telling us, which would be a disaster, or else she got kidnapped or got into an accident and if that's the case, she'll never end up with him!"

It spoke to the state of Mary Macdonald's life that she was, at this point, used to the behavior of her best friend. "Al, she came to dinner."

"And then she'll end up alone forever because she'll ne- She did?"

Mary sighed, explaining as patiently as she could to the over-excited blonde. "Yes. She did. You and Julia were arguing about eggs, remember?"

Julia smiled happily at the memory. She'd managed to win the argument by reminding Alice that while yes, you could eat fried eggs on top of hamburgers and sandwiches, you could put things _inside_ scrambled eggs, and that clearly made them the superior method of preparation - a point that Alice reluctantly conceded.

Alice, however, was not so easily put at peace. "And she didn't even say hello? Did she have something to hide? Maybe she found out about Operation: Jily and she's deliberately witholding vital information! What about that?"

Mary laughed and threw a pillow at the hysterical girl. "Alice. Really. Calm down. This is Lily – I'd put down ten galleons that she doesn't even realize that James ever liked her at all, much less that he still does."

Alice sobered. "I never understood that" she said, thought furrowing her brow. "He asked her out every other week, how did she not realize that he liked her?"

"Oh that's easy!" said Julia brightly. "Lily doesn't think of anybody else in a romantic sense, so it doesn't make sense to her that other people think of her in a romantic sense. It's just not the first thing her mind jumps to" Julia concluded.

"Exactly. And you know how Lils is, she doesn't really stop to overthink things, she just sort of follows her first instinct as far as it can go" finished Mary.

Alice's face scrunched up as she tried to think about what these new revelations meant for Operation: Lames. "This calls for a change of tactics" she declared. "Instead of continuing our offensive, we must instead adopt a strategy of surveillance and information gathering!" before rattling off different methods of concealment and different ways to stealthily record conversations.

Mary sighed, thinking remorsefully of the as-of-yet-unbroached pile of homework that the three girls had somehow managed to be assigned in a single day. She was really beginning to regret the day that Alice had actually started paying attention in History of Magic; this was shaping to be a long night in the Gryffindor Girl's Dorm Room.

* * *

_Author's Note: James is a little skittish, yes, but let's be honest here: he's thought that Lily's hated him for four years now, and now she's acting normal around him. He has every right to be, yeah? He'll get over it. Next chapter is just the same day, but from everyone else's point of view. Bear with me here – I know this chapter was mostly Jily filler, but that's not how this story's going to turn out. I want the focus to be on everybody else, in the end._

_Reviews are authors that don't pester people for reviews. How's that for meta? And self-effacing? Abed Nadir, you've got nothing on me._


	3. Nowhere Man

_Author's Note: I hope it's evident from the text, but this chapter is that first day of school from other character's points of view. I hopped between 3rd person limited to Lily, and a bit of 3rd person omniscient yesterday, but this one's going to be different. I just want to get into some of the other character's heads before I break them._

Disclaimer: Still entirely bereft of material possessions, but well fed, well clothed, well educated (however that may show in my writing is unclear, but rest assured, I am somewhat educated, so really, this isn't me complaining, it's me stating a fact.

_Reviews are those days where your hair and your face look good, and you can look at yourself in the mirror and go "damn, you fine." Not that I have those, but I can imagine how they feel, y'know?_

* * *

**Nowhere Man**

It's important to note, at this stage of our narrative, that this story is not about Lily Evans. Rather, it's a story of ripples, of the effect that one girl has on the lives of those around her. Remember that sea? Remember the ship? Picture them. Do you have them again? Good. Looking at the water now, you'd never guess the potential it has; you'd never guess that the proud ship you see gliding through it could ever be sunk. They didn't either, the people on board the ship, that is. They saw the storm, they saw the waves, but the ship was strong. They believed it to be impervious. It took, eventually, a hidden danger, a threat that lurked beneath the rolling of the surf to bring Lily Evans down, to send ripples and swells across the sea.

Look – do you see it? Do you see the source of ruin? Of course you don't. It's hidden, obscured, invisible from above. You've seen the world from the deck of a ship, watching only the surface of the ocean while missing entirely the depths of the water surrounding you.

That first day of classes, the first leg of the doomed voyage of the _HMS Evans,_ you've seen it from her decks. It's time to travel a few steps back, to take that first leg over again. We're back to the beginning – look around, do you see the sun rising on that first day at Hogwarts? Now, instead of flashing your boarding pass and crowding the decks with your fellow passengers, comes a different perspective. We are to briefly surrender our luxury cruise punctuated with early morning surprises and witty banter with dark-haired men to see how the other side lives. Don your wetsuit and hold your breath; we're going for a dive. You won't see it, not yet, but there are other things down here to occupy yourself with along our journey, things that you can't see from above. Look! There goes one now – do you see it? No? Look again. Ah, there you go. Now, look a little more closely, and you'll see that it's a girl and- Shhh! Wait. Quiet. She's only just waking up.

* * *

Julia sat up in bed, yawned sleepily, and shook her head, trying to banish the last of the night's drowsiness. Sunlight was pouring in through the arched windows and she blinked, the sudden change in brightness straining her eyes. A glance at the clock once her eyes adjusted informed her that it was early enough that Alice and Mary would not appreciate her making much noise, so she carefully tiptoed to the bathroom, the stone floor feeling deliciously cool underneath her feet.

Unlike some of her classmates (one red-headed girl in particular came to mind) Julia loved mornings. She loved the sense of solitude and quiet that accompanied being the only one awake. When at home, she woke up early enough to wait for her father to go to work, sitting happily in the kitchen nursing a cup of tea while keeping his warm on the stove. The mornings felt still, they felt peaceful and serene, and that was how Julia liked the world; her early mornings were a welcome foil to the constant activity and general pandemonium that marked a day at Hogwarts.

Of course, another benefit to waking up first was uncontested use of the bathroom's facilities, but as an only child, that was something that Julia took for granted. Still, it was safe to say that Julia took longer showers than the rest of the school, if only because she never had anyone pestering her to finish up.

She took her time in the shower, humming happily as she did. Still, despite having gone through her entire morning routine, when she returned to the bedroom, her two roommates were still fast asleep, Alice sprawled out, taking up as much space as she could, while Mary lay, huddled up in one corner of her bed. She frowned at their lazy forms. She tapped her foot for a couple of minutes, but her hunger eventually won out, and she made her way down to the Great Hall. They'd know where she was.

The Great Hall was, when she arrived, just as empty as her dorm had been. It wasn't the first time that Julia had been the earliest to breakfast, nor would it be the last. It was nice being the only one in the Great Hall, she thought. For one thing, you could hear yourself think, and for another, the food was hotter, which was a definite plus.

She sat alone, munching happily on a plate of scrambled eggs. It was another five minutes or so until other people began to file in, some of them yawning drowsily, others excitedly chattering about their plans for the new year. She spotted Alice and Mary and waved at them cheerfully, motioning for them to come and sit.

"Morning," Alice yawned, "Have you got your schedule yet?"

Julia shook her head. "Waited for you."

Alice smiled, appeased by this answer, and made to fill her plate with eggs and toast.

"We should go now though, before everybody rushes McGonagall," Mary noted.

Alice looked mournfully at her plate, but knew that Mary had a point, so the three girls walked over and collected their schedules from the Transfiguration professor.

"Potions first," Mary noted, "Julia, you still up for making them late?"

Julia nodded, expression thoughtful. This was their plan, what the three girls had discussed the night before. After Alice had decided that it was imperative that James and Lily learn to work together, she'd made the logical jump that it was necessary that they somehow contrive to get the pair to sit next to each other during class. Julia's task was to make sure that both James and Lily were late to class, while Alice and Mary were to make sure that no seats were available for either of the Heads to escape to.

Furthermore, Alice had declared, in a tone so dramatic that Mary had snorted, that were Julia to risk being late herself, that it would be better for her to just ditch class altogether; "Better take a cut than risk our plan be discovered by the enemy!" she had announced. Mary had had to smack her in the back of the head and remind the girl that they were match-making, not fighting a war.

Julia had agreed to this plan partially because it sounded fun, partially because she never really learned anything in Potions that Lily couldn't teach her later, and partially because of something that had caught her eye the night before. It wasn't strange to see Regulus Black hiding his face at dinner, he had always been rather quiet. It wasn't strange to see him hunched over his dinner, as close to his food as he could be, because everybody had their hungry days. It was strange, however, to see, just for a split second, a large gash, angry and ragged down his cheek, and a bruise staining his forehead a mottled purple when he let his guard down.

So really, Julia had agreed to the plan only because of the excuse it would give her to skive off of class, and talk to Regulus. It wasn't that she was ashamed of being his friend (confidant?), house rivalry meant nothing to her, it was that for their relationship to work, he couldn't be seen with her.

Lily arrived, performed her mandatory early-morning grouching, which Julia handily defused, and scurried off to McGonagall for her schedule. By this time, class was about to start (and Julia had been sitting in the Great Hall for over and hour and a half) so the three girls got up to leave. Better that they head to class without Lily, anyway; there'd be a higher chance of their plan's success if they didn't walk with her. "Good luck!" Alice chirped, before linking her arm with Mary's and heading off towards the dungeons.

Julia grinned at the receding figures of her friends, before turning to the tasks at hand. First, figure out Regulus' schedule, and see when she could confront him. Second, ensure that Lily and James be late to class. Priorities. She stood up and scanned the Hall; students were chattering, talking, milling about; a few of them were even heading to class. Her eyes spotted a dark-haired figure, alone and hunched over, snaking his way through the crowds. She jogged over and followed him up a staircase and down a hall, until there was no one else around. "Reg!" she hissed.

He spun, startled, hand shooting to his pocket, reaching for his wand, before he realized who it was. "Julia," he breathed, "Merlin, you startled me. What's going on?"

She frowned. Typical of him. "Reg, you were hurt last night. What's going on? Do you have class now?"

His hand unconsciously went to his cheek, smooth skin where there had been wounded flesh the night before. "Severus patched me up," he admitted, "And no, Mother told me that Care was a useless class, so I dropped it."

She glanced at a nearby grandfather clock; she was going to have to move quickly to hold up James and Lily. "I have to go do something really quick for a secret plan that Alice came up with, but I want to talk to you. Meet me in the kitchens in ten minutes?"

He nodded, and she turned and sprinted down the hall and down two flights of stairs.

She spotted Lily about three minutes from class. Glancing around for a suitable distraction, her eyes fell on a small girl, either a First or a Second year by the look of her, tugging along a bag far too big to be healthy for her back. Frowning at what she had to do (there was no time left to find something else, she reasoned) she pulled out her wand and muttered first an apology, then _"diffindo."_ The girl squealed, and Julia ducked out of sight.

Once she saw that Lily was thoroughly occupied, Julia hurried down the hall again, careful to avoid being spotted by her friend, until she found Potter, heading in from a side hall. She didn't have much time, and really, finding out what had happened to Regulus was more important than all of this right now. She looked carefully at her surroundings, spotting a drinking fountain, currently patronized by a rather stout boy. She flicked her wand and, taking careful aim at the tap, murmured _"reducto," _scurrying off as soon as she heard James' "Oi! You okay there, mate?"

Kitchens. Kitchens. She trotted off, shaking her head to banish the pangs of guilt that followed vandalism of school property, minor bullying, and skiving off of class.

She made it to the painting of a bowl of fruit rather quickly, although she was still a couple of minutes later than she'd promised. She tickled the pear (a trick that Mary had showed the girls, courtesy of a friendship with the Marauders) and stepped inside. Regulus was sitting at a small wooden table, sipping coffee and looking intensely uncomfortable. "'Lo," he muttered.

She took the seat across from him, resting her hands on the light blue tablecoth. "Reg," she said softly to her friend, "What happened?"

He laughed unhappily. "Same thing as always. Mum can't really punish Sirius now that he's moved out."

"Can you start from the beginning?" she asked.

He thought about it for a full minute, while Julia silently watched him, his eyes closed, and his brow furrowed with the effort. Finally, he opened his eyes. "I don't really know what the beginning of all this is," he admitted, "I've told you a lot already, but it's all so intertwined."

She frowned. "From as far back as you can go?" she suggested. "Sometimes, talking through everything helps."

He sighed. "Well, neither of us have class until after lunch, so I suppose we've time." He scratched thoughtfully at a phantom cut, running his fingers distractedly over his cheek. "Well, let's start with Sirius then. Mum never really did get over his being Sorted into Gryffindor. That was an awful day in the Black household, Mum holding his letter and screaming. She wasn't angry, really, not yet. She was just sad at first, you know? Like, disappointed, because she'd always seen Gryffindor as one of the disgraceful Houses, so she was more upset than anything else."

He frowned, and took another sip of his coffee before continuing.

"So then I had to put up with two years of her calling my older brother, the brother I'd grown up idolizing, a disappointment. And I didn't like that, but I didn't want to put her through that twice, I didn't want to be anything but a Slytherin, because no matter how much I thought Sirius was a role model, everyone wants to see their mum pleased, right?" He blanched when he realized what he'd said, quickly trying to amend his statement. "I mean- Shit. I didn't mean that Julia, you know that I-"

She cut him off with a finger pressed to his lips. "Shhh. It's okay. I don't cry about it anymore."

He frowned, but continued on, a little more careful with his wording this time. "So then I got to Hogwarts myself. This was five years ago. I was eleven, Merlin, I didn't know anything about who I was then, I just knew that I didn't want to see my Mum crying anymore because her son was a disappointment. So I begged the Sorting Hat to put me in Slytherin. Did you know that it was originally going to say Hufflepuff?" He chuckled weakly. "I can only imagine how Mum would have responded to that one. I was there for a good thirty seconds, arguing with that damn hat that I had to be in Slytherin. Anyway, it was about halfway through my first year, Sirius' third year, that he started letting on at home how he felt about the whole blood-purity thing. I mean, I've never been all that chuffed about it, but he really hated it. He and Mum would yell at each other about it over breaks, they'd send each other the nastiest letters. She couldn't get over the fact that he was 'betraying the family name' or whatever, and he couldn't get over the fact that she was a bigot."

A pause, while he dropped a sugar cube into his cup, stirring it in slowly.

"And that continued for a few years. They'd just yell and scream at each other, until this summer, they got into this huge row." The boy shuddered at the memory, his fingers clenching his mug until his knuckles paled. "I was in bed at the time, and I remember hearing them screaming and cursing, and things breaking. And then I heard him scream that he couldn't stay in the house anymore, and he left." Regulus shrugged. "I guess he's been staying at Potter's, because they showed up to the train together."

Julia frowned. She'd heard from Mary that Sirius and James were living together, but hadn't heard the circumstances. She wondered vaguely if Lily knew, but pushed that thought to the back of her mind.

"So anyway, after he left, Mum kind of lost it. Even throughout all the fighting and disagreements, she'd been planning for Sirius to take over the family name, to be the heir to the Blacks and all that. And then for a bit, she seemed okay with the idea of me doing it instead, but that kept changing. One day she'd be great, smiling, even, and trying to get me ready to take over the family name, and then the next, she'd be a lunatic again, hexing vases and blowing up tables, and I learned to stay away from her on days like that." His hand moved to his left shoulder, rubbing unconsciously at a remembered pain. "But on her good days, I try to encourage her. Sirius can't be the Black family heir, I mean, look at him. He doesn't agree with any of that pure-blood crap."

For the first time in a while, Julia spoke up. "Do you?" she asked quietly.

He stopped, mouth open in anticipation of another sentence. "No," he admitted, "But priorities, right? I have to keep Mum from hexing everything around her or from going after Sirius or something, and the easiest way to do that is to just go along with what she says. So I pretend."

"And your cheek?"

He laughed unhappily. "The day before I left was a bad day. I knew it was, but I wanted to say good-bye, you know? This is my mum. I wanted to say good-bye before I didn't see her again for three and a half months." His hand was back to his cheek. "So I went down to say bye, and she blew up this bust of my great-great-grandfather or someone like that, and a couple of pieces hit my face. It wasn't that bad. Really. Sev was able to fix it up in a couple of minutes."

The pair sat in silence for a minute, Julia staring at the boy across from her, Regulus scratching at his cheek.

She tilted her head to the side, as if the change in angle would somehow help her see what she should say. "What are you going to do?" she asked.

"What I have to," he shrugged. "If I don't agree to be heir, Mum'd probably go off the deep end entirely. She's already teetering as is, and I can't disturb that. She'd probably go after Sirius or something, and I can't have that on my conscience."

"What do you want to do?"

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter. I mean, I'm going to become heir and lead the family no matter what I want, so there's no point in thinking about that."

"But if you could do anything? What would it be?"

He frowned. "I- I actually haven't thought about that," he admitted.

"Well let me know, okay?" Julia suddenly grinned, the expression far more familiar on her face than the melancholy from before. "Think about it and let me know. Because even if it doesn't work out, you still have to be happy and hope sometimes. So you can with me!"

Regulus tried to fight it, he really truly did, but Julia's good humour was too infectious to not be affected by. "Absolutely, Julia. Yeah, I will."

And the funny thing is, he meant it.

With that, the heavy subject matter was dropped and traded in for light-hearted discussion more typical of children their age. The conversation was comfortable and pleasant, lasting until the proximity of lunch time made the kitchens too loud to continue talking. "I should go," Regulus yelled, "I have to make a showing at the table. Bellatrix is expecting me to be there, and she owls Mum twice a week or so."

Julia frowned, but nodded. Their friendship ran more smoothly when the nastier side of Slytherin House wasn't aware of it. Actually, it ran more smoothly when no one was aware of it. "Owl me when you want to talk next?"

"Don't I always?"

And with that, the two departed the kitchens (a safe five minutes or so apart, Regulus leaving first, looking as innocent as he could manage.)

Julia was heading towards the Great Hall, hoping to get to lunch on time, when she ran into her friends. "Hi!" she said, pulling up behind them. "How was Potions?"

* * *

"_Bugger,_" Remus thought, "_Bugger, shite, blast, cock. Here? Of all the places in the bloody Charms room, you've got to sit here?"_

"Hello then, Padfoot," Remus said, "You sitting here, then?"

Sirius pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "Prongs isn't here yet, and Wormy's sitting with Saito." He pulled the most simpering smile he could, before whining, "Why? Don't you want to sit with me, Moons?"

"_No,_" thought Remus.

"Nah, go for it," he said, trying his very best to keep his voice steady.

"Brill," Sirius grinned, clapping Remus on the back, "Don't worry, I won't distract you from taking notes, or whatever it is that you do instead of having fun."

Remus would have contested two of the points that Sirius had made in his last sentence. First of all, he didn't take notes as a replacement for fun, he took notes because unlike James and Sirius, not everyone could coast by on what really seemed to be genius-level intellect. Secondly, no matter what Sirius did, short of leave the room, it was pretty much a given that he'd distract Remus.

You see, the unfortunate secret of the Marauders was that, unknown to his three compatriots, Remus Lupin was positive of the fact that he was in love with Sirius Black.

It wasn't something that got in the way too much, at least, not when he wasn't alone with the boy.

When James and Peter were around, it was easier to hide his infatuation, easier to distract himself from Sirius' face, from his hair, from his lips. It was when they were alone, when there was nothing for Remus to focus on besides the object of his affections (because really, who can pay attention to the Protean Charm when your crush is right next to you) that it really began to be a problem.

He was sweating, he was sure of it. His mouth felt dry, and it was taking collosal effort to not turn his head every two seconds to stare at the raven-haired beauty next to him. Not that Sirius would have noticed; he'd fallen asleep almost as soon as Flitwick had begun his lecture. Still, it was the principle of the thing, and Remus was convinced that if he looked, he wouldn't be able to stop, and surely somebody would notice if Remus Lupin spent an entire lesson staring at Sirius Black instead of taking notes.

And so, entirely without meaning to, Sirius Black distracted Remus Lupin from the lesson, inadvertently contributing to a classwide inability to grasp the Protean Charm.

The bell rang, and Sirius opened his eyes, groggily shaking his head. "Did I miss anything then, Moons?"

"_How the fuck would _I _know, you prat? I've been trying not to stare at you this whole bloody period._"

"Nah, you'll be fine." And with that, Remus stood up as quickly as he could, gathering his things, and rushing out of the classroom, and away from Sirius.

It wasn't that Remus was scared of confessing, not really. He was, after all, a Gryffindor, and that kind of bold confession was just the kind of thing his house was known for. No, he hid his feelings for a very lionish reason indeed: loyalty.

There were three main reasons that Remus refused to act upon his feelings.

First, and most pressingly, Sirius did not like him back. This was evident by the string of girlfriends that marched, regular as clockwork, through the other boy's life. If Sirius didn't like him, then not only was there no point in confessing, but he could only see it hurting their friendship. Remus refused to be pitied; he'd had enough of that as a werewolf.

Which brought him to point two: lycanthropy. Sirius knew that Remus was a werewolf and seemingly didn't care. He still hung out with boy, he still considered him a mate, a friend, a Marauder. Becoming a werewolf's boyfriend though, was a much different sort of commitment, and one that Remus did not want to make anyone undertake. He already felt like he was burdening his friends enough just by being their friend, and he felt no need to add to that.

Thirdly, but no less importantly, even assuming that the first two problems suddenly vanished, and Sirius magically wanted Remus, wolf and all, there was no way of knowing how James and Peter would react to such a relationship, and Remus would always put his friendships first. It wasn't that any of the Marauders were homophobic, or had expressed any such sentiment in the past, it was more that a relationship would necessarily throw off the dynamic that the four had, and Remus knew first hand just how important the kind of bond that they shared would be.

All in all, Remus Lupin felt rather justified in not saying anything regarding his non-platonic feelings towards Sirius to anyone. After all, it was better for everyone that he remain silent. Except for himself, of course, but he thought that the burden of his secret was well worth his continued friendships.

Of course, he wasn't running over those three reasons in his head as he walked off. No, as Remus walked off, all he could think of was escaping Sirius and getting to Arithmancy on time. He should be safe, Sirius had to go in the other direction for Care of Magical Creatures (which he was only taking to annoy his mom, and bugger it all, _why did Remus remember things that Sirius had said in passing three years ago._) Remus shook his head, trying to clear the face of his friend out of his mind, when:

"Oy, Moons, hold up a sec," Sirius panted out, "You storm off quicker than Evans does when Prongs is around." He bent over with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily.

"_Bugger, shite, I'd almost gotten away, too,_" Remus thought.

"Sorry about that," Remus apologized, "Didn't mean to go off that fast."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Look, Moons, I know I slack off in class, but I'm not stupid. I know what's wrong. I know why you ran off."

Remus' blood turned cold. On the one hand, Sirius didn't look angry, or upset, or murderous, so that was good, but on the other hand, he knew what was wrong. His mind was racing, trying to come up with some way to explain, to play it off, to pretend that it was nothing.

"Er... Do you?" he managed weakly.

Sirius smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, I reckon you're ticked off because Prongs is trying to turn over a new leaf, and I'm still the same git I've always been."

"_Maybe if I just tell him it's the wolf in m- What?_"

"What?" Remus blinked. Twice. "Come again?"

"Yeah, you've always been after us to get on a bit better, and to be model, upstanding citizens like yourself. And now Prongs has gone and gone all boring- I mean, good, and you don't approve of Worms and I being prats. That's why you didn't want me to sit just then in Charms, right?"

"_Not even close._"

"Right. Right, yeah, that's it. You two've been right gits." For once, Remus found himself blessing his friend's inability to understand people besides himself and James.

"So I reckon if Prongs can do it, Worms and I can do it as well. Role models to the rest of the house and all that." Sirius beamed, happy with himself at having discovered the root of his friend's dissatisfaction. "So then. Good thing we've got that sorted, because we're going to be sitting together for the rest of term."

"_What?_"

"What?"

"I mean, I figure Prongs is going to be trying to sit next to Evans, and I'm _pretty _sure that Worms fancies Saito, so that leaves you and me." Sirius scratched thoughtfully at the scruff on his chin, before adding, "Good thing too, I don't think that we've had a proper conversation, just you and me, since what, second year? Be nice to talk to someone other than Prongs, he's always going on and on about Evans, and it gets old."

Remus blanched. "_A whole term? I barely survived a day._"

"Er, so we're sitting together for the whole term then?"

Sirius chuckled. "Aaah, don't worry about it, Moons, I was only joking about the talking. I'll keep my mouth nice and quiet during class. I know how you studious types are." And with that, he winked at Remus and hurried off towards his next class, leaving a spell-shocked boy behind, gaping at his friend's back.

"_Bugger._"

* * *

Melanie Greengrass picked desolately at the chicken stew that she had chosen for dinner. It wasn't that she wasn't hungry; she was, ravenously so. It wasn't that the food wasn't good either; despite coming from an old pure-blooded family and therefore having grown up with house-elves her whole life, Melanie never ceased to be impressed by the quality of the food at Hogwarts. No, it was more the fact that being at Hogwarts was a forcible reminder of just how lonely Melanie Greengass felt on a regular basis, and such loneliness was rather unappetizing.

At home, she spent much of her time by herself. Her parents, both wizards of respectable lineage, worked in the Ministry, which left them little time at home to interact with their only child. She was by no means a neglected child or the victim of any kind of abuse. She was merely lonely. She preferred to read in her room, or to sit by herself and think, but that didn't mean that she didn't sometimes wish for a friend or a sibling to share her time with.

However, more than anything right now, Melanie Greengrass felt estranged from her House. It seemed that taking in only pure-bloods wasn't limiting enough; there were other standards that the members of Slytherin House had to live up to.

Melanie was far too studious, far too quiet, far too deferent to her teachers to fully assimilate into Slytherin. Or, at least, too studious, too quiet, too deferent to her teachers to fully live up to what the most out-spoken members of her House believed the Slytherin ideal to be.

In reality, she wasn't alone, not at all. Things had been better when Narcissa Black was around and Head Girl; the meeker side of Slytherin had felt her loss acutely. Where there had once stood a bubbly, enthusiastic leader, there was now a void that was being filled, apparently, by the likes of Bellatrix Black and Mulciber.

It wasn't a reign of terror, not by a long shot, but it was definitely an environment much less receptive to enthusiasm and exuberance than it had been before. It was hard to reach out and to try and find like-minded individuals with the threat of a snarling upper-class man (or woman, in the case of Bellatrix) ready to censure you for giving the Slytherins a bad name for being childish, or a brown noser, or a swot.

There were a lot of unspoken rules in Slytherin. Among them were "Do not ask for help," "Do not talk to Gryffindors," "Do not be a swot," and "Do not talk back to Bellatrix Black." They weren't really rules as much as they were general guidelines that young Slytherins learned to follow lest their quality of life substantially fall off. Again, these guidelines had been relaxed in the presence of Narcissa Black, but with her gone, things were not as simple.

Melanie had never really subscribed to the train of thought that dictated that "Gryffindors were evil," after all, her father was a Slytherin, but her mother had been a Gryffindor, back in the day. Still, all interactions that she'd had with them until this day had been less than savory.

She'd only been at Hogwarts one year, but that year had, unfortunately for her peace of mind, been the Marauder's sixth. As pranksters, they were without peer. As ambassadors for Gryffindor house, they were rather polarizing. A substantial percentage of the student body (and more professors than one would think) believed that the Marauders were hilarious, intelligent, and worthy of respect. The minority (comprised mostly of Slytherins, and the Ravenclaws who were upset at the constant defacement of the library) believed that they were juvenile, disrespectful, and had no place at the school.

Melanie was rather on the fence regarding the quartet. On the one hand, everyone around her seemed to think that they were worse than finding doxy eggs in your pumpkin juice. On the other, she'd never really found any of their pranks dangerous or harmful, and she preferred to form opinions by herself.

Which brought her to her current dilemma. The Head Girl. Lily had been nice, far nicer than any of her house mates now that Narcissa was gone, and niceness was a commodity that her life was sorely lacking. The problem was that while they wouldn't hurt her physically, her house-mates could certainly make her life a lot harder were they to find out that she was friends with the Head Girl.

Melanie glared at the food on her plate, wanting, more than anything right now, a friend. Catty students and ripped bags would be a lot more bearable if only she had someone to bear it with, she decided.

* * *

Mary groaned. With Lily gone to live with James, the task of "voice of reason in the room" was passed down to her, and in the room she was in, this was a far greater burden than any one girl should have to be entrusted with. Alice and Julia had spent an _hour and a half _arguing about eggs. She was vaguely worried that between them they'd find a way to burn down the magical stone castle if she didn't watch them closely enough.

Honestly, if she didn't dearly love them both, she would have absconded to Lily's and begged the Head Girl to let her live on her couch and hide from her classmates. As it was, she was listening to Alice talk about the Disillusionment Charm, and how useful it could be in figuring out exactly how Lily felt about James at the moment, and, more importantly, what it was that Lily knew about their plan.

Scarily enough, Julia seemed to be on board with everything that Alice was saying.

"Al, this is ridiculous," Mary eventually broke in, "A Disillusionment Charm? Following her back to her dorm to figure out where it is? Why can't we just go ask her?"

"Ask her what?" Alice asked, breaking off mid-tirade.

"Whatever it is that you're trying to find out through stealth?"

Alice rolled her eyes. "Mare, the whole point is that we don't know what she knows."

"Ye-es," Mary said, "Which is why I suggested just asking her about it."

"But then she'd ask why we want to know! And if she wasn't already, asking her about James would definitely make her suspicious! And that would make her even more likely to withhold key information!"

It was Mary's turn to roll her eyes. "Al, have you ever known Lily to not tell us something important? If we ask her a question, she answers it. Right, Jules?"

Julia nodded. "Lily never did hide much from us."

"But that's because her life is boring!" Alice wailed, "She never has a boyfriend, or detention, or _anything_! There's no _point _in asking her questions!"

Mary snickered. "She's not boring, Al, she just knows how to not get in trouble."

"Fine. Then you can ask her, and Julia and I will continue on with our plans, so that Operation: Jily doesn't fail when she doesn't tell you anything." And with that, Alice stuck her nose into the air, sniffed theatrically, and turned back to Julia.

May chuckled, and then groaned. It was 23:30, and she _still_ hadn't started her homework. Oh, this was going to be a long night.

* * *

_Author's Note: I should probably put up trigger warnings for this fic at some point, but I'll do that when I need to. Everything's still up in the air right now, and nothing's really tied down for certain. But be warned, this isn't going to be fluffy. I mean, it's not all going to be fluffy. It's definitely going to get a little heavy later on._

_Reviews aren't literally Beatles songs, but they do both make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, so there's one similarity. _


	4. Octopus' Garden

_Author's Note: First off, apologies a thousand times over for how long this has taken, and a thousand times more in advance for how long the rest will take. School is somehow _more _stressful and time-consuming than I remembered, which is saying something, really. As such, the main source of my free time will be weekends and those rare days when I am ahead in terms of homework._

_As for notes pertaining to the story: realize please, that while the text says that this is a story "about Lily," it's also a story about the people around her, about Sirius, about Remus, about Mary, about Alice, about Julia, about Melanie, about Regulus, about James, etc. These people all have lives greater than the parts that intersect with that of our heroine/protagonist, and I will do my utmost to show all of you lovely people said existence. That said, the story will get very Lily centric for a bit, but I hope that it doesn't remain that way for too long._

_Also, despite this being late, I'm afraid it might have come off a bit rushed. Blame Shae for that, you guys. It's her birthday and I decided that this is all I could really get her, because hey, being poor and having no free time sucks, you guys._

_Reviews are that wonderful feeling you get after having cleaned and rearranged your room!_

* * *

**Octopus' Garden**

Watch now as we return the land of buffets and pool games, of sunshine and sea breeze, leaving behind the murky waters of the world below. All aboard the _HMS Evans_ for the second leg of her journey. She cuts through the water, her passengers laughing and chattering, unaware and uncaring of the contents of the waters below. They see the surface but not the depths, and for now, that's enough. For now, that's enough to keep them safe. For now, the depths aren't a danger. Watch.

* * *

Lily knew that inanimate objects couldn't feel pain. She knew that they were just things, that they didn't have feelings. That knowledge, however, didn't stop her from wishing that there was some form of _cruciatus_ that she could use to show her alarm clock just how much she resented its shrill wail.

She groaned, rolled over, and buried her face in her pillow, trying her best to drown out the noise. Her efforts, however, were to no avail. Swearing, she slid out of bed, cursing the alarm clock, cursing the morning, but above all, cursing the Night-Lily who'd thought herself extra clever in placing the alarm clock in the furthest corner of the room that she could.

She briefly considered going back to bed, pulling the covers over her body, and sleeping for just a few more delicious minutes, but the sun was already pouring in through her window. Squinting her eyes in an effort to mitigate the worst of the pain, she shuffled into the bathroom, mood as foul as ever. She brushed her teeth before examining her hair in the mirror. It was something of a mess, sticking out in all the wrong places, but after years of waking up, she was used to that. She pulled at a couple of locks and sighed, rolling her eyes. Over the years, she'd gotten a fair number of compliments on her hair, but she suspected that there would have been many fewer had Mary not been around to tame her hair every morning.

The door creaked open, and Lily span to see who it was. In hindsight, it was an unnecessary motion as the only other occupant of the dormitory stepped inside, towel wrapped around his waist. She saw his eyes make an upward sweep from her toes on up until their eyes met and his cheeks flushed. There was an uncomfortable pause that lasted for about three seconds, silence and tension filling the room.

"I wouldn't happen to be wearing anything more than my knickers by any chance, would I?" Lily eventually asked.

"No, I can't say that you are," James replied weakly.

"Right. Brill." Lily sighed. "Well. Let's not make this a habit." She looked at James for a few seconds before narrowing her eyes. "Well?"

James looked startled, managing to sputter out "Well what?"

Lily sighed. "Well, are you going to go shower, or are you going to just stand there?"

"Oh- Oh, right. Yeah. You don't- You don't want to go put on clothes, then or something?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Why? Do you want me to put more clothes on?" She snickered at the mixture of shock and mortification that flashed across her dormmates face, and turned back to the mirror. "Didn't think so."

Somehow, teasing James Potter had put her into a much better mood than she had been just minutes ago. It wasn't even that she was happy that she'd made him blush and stutter, more that the encounter had lifted her mood, and the cheer had stuck around, even as the cause of it had not.

She was still chuckling as she headed down to breakfast. She grinned as she took her seat at the Gryffindor table, oblivious to the looks of shock and terror on the faces of her best friends. She pulled a plate of pancakes towards her, depositing three of them onto her plate.

"Mmph." She swallowed the mass of syrupy pastry. "Pancakes are good today."

Alice's face could only be described as ashen. "Lily?" she ventured timidly. "Lily, did something happen?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Julia asked that question yesterday and Mary called her crazy."

"Yes," Alice replied shakily, "But yesterday you were acting normal, and today you're not."

"Not normal?" Lily laughed unsarcastically. "I'm fine. I'm peachy-keen."

"That's just the point, though," Mary cut in, "You're... Well, you're cheerful, and it's the morning."

Julia nodded. "You aren't happy when you're normal."

"I'm not happy when I'm normal? What's that supposed to mean, Jules?" Lily pulled what she believed to be a highly insulted face.

Julia giggled. "Lily, you look like you just smelled spoiled milk."

"Whatever. What do you mean, I'm not happy when I'm normal?"

Mary shrugged. "You're not really a morning person, Lils. Seeing you anything less than grouchy in the morning is kind of a shock for us."

"Oh please," Lily scoffed, "You make me out to be some kind of terror."

"You are," Alice clarified, "I've kept track. This is the second time ever that I've seen you smile before breakfast, and the first time was first year's Christmas."

Lily rolled her eyes. "A girl can't just be happy once in a while without her friends questioning it?"

"Normal girls, yes, but not you, Lils," Mary noted drily. "I keep expecting to see, I dunno, some poor pig that Black charmed wings onto fluttering around, or something. What happened?"

Alice grinned, her fear gone and replaced with a desire to get to the bottom of her friend's unnatural good mood. "Did you see James starkers again, then?"

Lily choked, coughing twice before looking up again. She flushed, her face blending in rather seamlessly with her hair. "Excuse me? How did you make that leap from 'Lily is happy' to 'Lily saw James naked'?"

"You called him James!" Alice crowed, "And you're blushing!"

"So?" Lily protested, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Alice waggled her eyebrows. "So you never really told us yesterday. Is Potter fit?"

Lily groaned. "Fine. Yes. You caught me. He walked in in a towel again, but it's not like I looked. Happy?"

"Very," Alice said smugly.

Having said all that they wanted to, the four girls ate in silence for a few minutes before Lily broke the silence. "Now that you mention it though, he was pretty fit," she said thoughtfully, before returning to her pancakes. She finished them in two quick bites, before standing up and grinning. "See you after class!" she said.

Mary whistled slowly as Lily walked away. "See what I mean? Not boring at all, that Lils of ours."

Alice looked like she'd been hit by lightening. "She's evil!" the brunette gasped, "Evil, I tell you. Ooh, Operation Jily is so on. We need more information."

Mary rolled her eyes at the statement. "Al, didn't we just get proof that Lily, when asked, will tell us just about anything?"

"But we don't know that!" Alice exclaimed, "Maybe she's just trying to distract us from more important information! Like, maybe they snogged, and that's why she was grinning, or maybe he has a ridiculous tattoo, or maybe he has a third nip-"

"Alice," interrupted Mary sternly, "As much as I'd just _love_ for you to finish that sentence, you're being ridiculous."

Alice pouted. "But what if-"

"Alice."

"Fine, fine," Alice grouched, "You don't have to help. Good enough?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "I guess I can't stop you from wasting your time, then. Just know that you're ridiculous, okay?"

"Yeah, but you love me anyway!" she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around her best friend. She grinned, and continued animatedly on about her plans for her own stealth missions.

"Yeah. Yeah I do, Al," Mary acknowledged quietly, grinning at the shorter girl's enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, Julia had finished her plate of eggs and had started working on Mary's, swiping mouthfuls from the other girl's plate. She smiled contentedly to herself; it was shaping up to be a good year; Julia was good at sensing those kinds of things. Her intuition had never failed her before. Of course, there was always a first time for everything, but really, what were the odds of this being that first time?

* * *

Lily walked into her Arithmancy class, performing the traditional "first class of the year" ritual of scoping out the competition. There were a couple of Slytherins in the far corner, the token Ravenclaws in the front row, and, somewhat surprisingly, two or three Hufflepuffs filling in the gaps. Lily smiled when she saw a familiar face – Remus Lupin sitting alone. She hurried over to him, and dropped her bags off in the seat next to his.

"Morning, Remus!"

He turned towards her, his eyes half drooping with sleep. "Morning," he yawned, "What's got you in such a chipper mood?"

Lily groaned. "Oh, don't you start too."

Remus chuckled drowsily. "Whatever you say, Lily," he murmured.

"What's up with you, then? It's just the second day back, you can't possibly be behind on sleep already. Even I got a full night's rest," Lily chided. It was true, she'd slept rather well, especially for Hogwart's standards. James' assistance had really helped with the production of the tiles, and having company had made doing her homework much more bearable.

Remus scowled. "Couldn't sleep."

"Well, that much was obvious. You look about ready to nod off. You get sick a lot, but this is the second day of class!"

A shrug. "Dorm-mates made it hard to sleep."

Lily tutted sympathetically. "That makes sense. It must be hard living with the Marauders."

"Excuse me!" Remus replied indignantly, "There is nothing wrong with the Marauders. 'Sides," he yawned, "Aren't you living with one of our number now too?"

Lily laughed. "Well, you've got me there. Can't say he keeps me up at night, though. He's a lot quieter than I'd have thought one of you lot could be."

"Big misconception really," Remus admitted. "We Marauders really value our sleep. James and Sirius need to get a minimum of eight hours a night, and Peter and I are pretty quiet anyway."

"Right. Except for last night, then."

"Come again?"

"You just said that one of them kept you up all night, didn't you?"

"He... Well, he didn't do it on purpose?"

Lily frowned quizzically. "Are you being intentionally obtuse, or are you just tired?"

Remus sighed. "Just tired, Lily. I'll, uh- I'll explain later."

Lily shrugged. She'd have pursued the topic, but Professor Abscissa walked through the door, and she'd spent far too many classes already underneath the _muffliato_, and she wasn't eager to turn slacking off into a habit. Besides, Remus was a good student, and she'd hate to distract him, especially when he was already so worn out; Arithmancy was a difficult enough class already without distracting conversations and sleep deprivation wearing away at one's concentration.

Still, she was curious as to what had happened to her friend. Remus was sickly, she knew that, he was ill, or was visiting sick relatives, with alarming frequency. However, he never tried to hide any of his illnesses, answering readily about whatever malady was befalling him at the time. Had Remus just said that he felt sick, or that he was under the weather, she'd have accepted that and moved on. The fact that he'd first blamed one of his dorm-mates on his lack of sleep and then not answered any further questions about it made Lily curious, and a curious Lily was a Lily who got answers.

And so she sat, split between her desire to learn about what had kept Remus up all night and her desire to not fail Arithmancy. She managed to curb her non-academic curiousity enough to take notes that, while not up to her normal diligent standard, were enough to get her through the night's homework. The bell rang, and Professor Abscissa closed her book with a sharp crack. "That's it for today then, class," she said, in her typical brusque fashion, "I'll see you all again next week. Homework is on the board." She waved her wand lazily, and the assignment slowly appeared in bright white letters on the chalkboard. Lily copied it down as quickly as she could, but when she turned to resume the interrogation of her friend, he'd disappeared.

"Blast," she muttered, hurrying out of the classroom to see where Remus had gone to.

She caught up to him just a couple of minutes later. "Remus!" she called across the hall, walking briskly to fall in step with him.

"Bugger," he said under his breath, "How do people keep doing that?"

"Come again?"

"Nothing."

"Remus..."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Fine. I was trying to avoid you so you wouldn't ask any more questions, but you caught up to me in a fashion not unlike the way somebody I was trying to avoid yesterday caught up to me." He paused thoughtfully for a second. "Maybe I should take up jogging. I'd get a bit more distance that way."

Lily stopped walking, taken aback at his candor. "Merlin, Remus, I'm sorry about that. I didn't think- I didn't mean to pry."

He sighed. "It's... It's not really that. I just don't know how to talk about it right now."

"You're not making much sense, Remus."

"It's- It's not really a conversation for the hallways of Hogwarts. Can we leave it at that for now?"

Ah. That made a little bit more sense. As much as Lily loved her school, it wasn't really a place where secrets were easily kept; the curse of living at school was that gossip spread like Fiendfyre: quickly, virulently, and once it took hold, it was impossible to get rid of. So this was something that Remus didn't want spread. She could respect that.

"Gotcha," she said, tapping one finger against the side of her nose, "If you want to talk about it though, you know where to find me."

"Right," Remus smiled wearily, "You're a good friend, Lily."

She grinned. "'Course I am. Don't keep me too curious for too long though, or I'll have to resort to the kind of magic that we're not supposed to know to get the information out of you."

He chuckled. "You know, I think as Head Girl, you're not really supposed to be making threats like that."

"Oh please, as if you'd turn me in," she scoffed.

"You have a point," conceded Remus.

"Well, I am always right," Lily admitted. "Let me know when you want to talk, okay? I've got to be off, free periods and homework and all that, yeah?"

"I'll let you know," Remus promised.

As Lily turned and walked away, heading off towards the library to get a head start on the set of Arithmancy problems she'd been set, Remus sighed. It was one thing to harbor secret desires for your best friend, it was another thing entirely to admit it, out loud, to somebody else. Somehow, the prospect of talking about it made the whole dilemma seem more real, more problematic, more pressing. As much as he recognized it's importance, he was not looking forward to his impending conversation with Lily.

* * *

Lily walked into the library and looked around without too much hope. Normally she'd spend her free periods with her friends, either studying for an upcoming class or else trying to persuade Alice to not go through with whatever hair brained scheme she had in mind at the time. Unfortunately, she was the only girl in her year who'd opted out of the Divination N.E.W.T. As was standard in times of political turmoil, Divination had become one of the most popular classes offered; many were under the impression that it could provide some insight into the future of the Wizarding World, and more importantly, offer some guidance as to how to survive the impending conflict.

Lily was not as convinced of the subject's efficacy, and had deigned to pursue the subject further, despite the EE that she'd received on her O.W.L., which left her as the only girl in her year who wasn't enrolled in the course. She rather suspected that Mary was only pursuing the "mystical and powerful art of Divination" to appease Mary, who had insisted that it was the most important subject that they could take, given the circumstances, but she had no confimration on that one way or another.

And so it came as no surprise to Lily Evans that when she walked through the double doors to the Hogwarts Library, it was, for the most part, utterly void of anyone she knew. Her eyes swept the room once, twice, before they found a familiar face, one that she'd missed the first time around. She quickly crossed the library, putting her books down with a gentle "thud."

"Hi Melanie," Lily whispered, "Mind if I sit down? All my friends are in Divination, and I prefer to have company if I'm trying to get work done."

Melanie looked up, startled, eyes wide. "Oh," she squeaked, "No. Not at all."

"Brill," the older girl beamed, "Scoot over a bit, then."

Melanie obliged, moving her chair over to allow Lily space to sit, before turning back to her book, burying her nose in Standard Book of Spells Grade 2. Lily pulled out her Arithmancy text, and began to go over the problems that she'd been set, immersing herself in the world of numbers and figures.

The pair worked in silence for about thirty-five minutes, during which Lily managed to complete a grand total of one half of one of the six problems that she'd been set. It was eventually Melanie who broke the silence by groaning loudly and burying her face in the desk. Lily glanced around the room, but no one seemed to have heard the short outburst. "What's wrong?" she asked quietly.

Melanie's head popped of her desk. "Sorry," she said, "I forgot you were there."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm glad my presence can scare you into submission. What's wrong?"

The blonde just glowered balefully at her textbook. "It's this stupid subject. I'm reading through this book and I don't understand any of it."

"Any of it? What do you mean?"

Melanie groaned. "I don't understand any of it. The descriptions of the charms make no sense, but I can't test them out to see what they do, because that'd be dangerous, and besides, it's not like I'd be able to do them even if I wanted to." She frowned. "How long until I can drop Charms?"

"Not until after Fifth-Year. Would you really drop it, though? I don't know anyone who's dropped Charms."

"Oh I don't know. I guess not. I just can't see myself ever voluntarily doing more charms."

"Fair enough. What's your favorite subject, then?"

Melanie looked around carefully to see if anyone was listening in, before admitting, "Care of Magical Creatures. Don't tell anyone though, it's not a 'respectable' class, my dad says."

Lily grinned. "Don't worry about it. Your secret's safe with me."

Melanie smiled. "Thanks."

"Not a problem. That's what the Head Girl's for, isn't it? Solving your problems and keeping your secrets safe?"

Melanie rolled her eyes. "If you were solving all my problems, you'd make me good at Charms, and tell my dad that working with unicorns is perfectly respectable."

Melanie's statements were met with chuckles from the Head Girl. "I don't know about that second one," she admitted, "But if you'd like, I could tutor you in Charms. We both seem to have this period free, and it'd be easy enough to find somewhere to practice."

"N- No! No, that's okay, I don't want to make you do that, I don't want to be a bother!" Melanie stammered, taken aback by the offer.

"Really, if it was too much trouble, I wouldn't be offering."

"Well," Melanie said uncertainly, "If you're sure?"

"Course I am. I'll see you next week, same time, same place? I've gotta run now, I'm off to lunch."

"Okay. Next week!"

Lily grinned at the shorter girl as she gathered up her books, stuffing the rather miserable progress of her Arithmancy work into her bag before leaving the library.

* * *

The first thing Lily noticed upon arriving in the Great Hall was that Remus was apparently still utterly exhausted, if the fact that he was asleep in his plate of chips was any indication. From the looks of things, Sirius and Peter were trying to see how many loaves of bread they could stack on their dozing friend's head; the tower currently stood six high. James, meanwhile, was doing his best to look disinterested, even disapproving of the whole thing, but his excitement was obvious when the seventh loaf of bread teetered slightly before settling into place.

So intently was Lily watching the group of boys that she barely registered when her friends sat down, hearing, but not listening to the last snippets of their conversation. "-And then she said that I have a secret admirer! Me! Isn't that romantic? I hope he's cute."

Mary answered in a typically sardonic fashion. "Alice, you think all boys are cute while you're snogging them. It's only after that they develop buck teeth or acne or a gut."

Alice stuck her tongue out. "At least I get boys to kiss me," she retorted.

Julia, meanwhile, was paying less attention to the subject of boys, and more to what Lily was looking at. "I noticed that too," she said dreamily. "It's not really his time of month, is it?"

The absurdity of the statement took a couple of seconds to reach Lily's brain, but once it did, she snorted with laughter. "Julia. Guys don't have cycles. He has no 'time of month.'"

Julia shook her head. "I know that. Daddy explained it to me. It's just that he gets sick, Remus, I mean, at the same time every month." She turned to Lily, cocking her head to the left, before continuing. "Haven't you noticed? He leaves for a couple of days, and comes back looking sick and weak. Maybe he's secretly a girl," she mused, "Or maybe the Monthly Red Cap made a mistake because of his hair. Maybe if he cut it, he'd stop getting sick so often."

And with that, Julia was back in her own world, somehow having interpreted the "Monthly Red Cap" that parents used to explain that 'time of the month' to their children literally, and was trying to devise the most elegant solution she could to save Remus from his case of mistaken identity.

Lily was similarly lost in thought, her mind tracing through the implications of what Julia had just revealed. She thought back as far as she could and yes, it fit, just as she'd thought it would. Julia's observations could be counted on to be both seemingly random, but also made with pin-point accuracy, and this time was no exception. When she thought about it, Remus had gotten ill with regularity once a month for as long as she'd known him. He'd always just chalked it up to a sickly disposition, a statement that was corroborated by his teachers, his family, and the Hospital Wing, and so nobody had ever really questioned it. What was more puzzling though, now that she thought about it, was that he always seemed to know when he'd be unwell before hand. He was careful to schedule things around his absences, shifting study sessions, trading patrol duties, asking for extensions on essays, making sure that nothing interfered with whatever was afflicting him so regularly.

What did it mean? She came to two conclusions. First, Remus was ill. She found it highly unlikely that he was secretly a woman, or that the Monthly Red Cap had, in fact, mistaken his identity, and she had no reason to disbelieve the mountain of evidence in front of her that pointed to his being chronically unwell. Secondly, whatever it was that was afflicting him was something that was either serious enough that he didn't want to burden her with it, or else only an inconvenience, and didn't feel the need to let her know.

Lily quickly ran through the list of all of the chronic periodic illnesses, magical or muggle, that she could think of, and came up with a sadly short list. Other than two or three magical afflictions that she'd only heard of in passing in DADA the year before, nothing came to mind. Casting one more look at the sleeping boy, she, with a considerable amount of effort, pushed the dilemma to the back of her mind, resolving to figure it out later, with the aid of the library.

* * *

Herbology was uneventful. Or, rather, it was as uneventful as a N.E.W.T. level Herbology class can be, which isn't very. Two students suffered rather nasty looking acid burns from a shiny looking leaf that attacked with what seemed to be a mind of its own, and there was a concerted flurry of panic when Peter ("It was an accident, Professor, I swear!") knocked over a pot that formerly housed a pair of mandrakes.

At least, Lily mused, no one had gotten _seriously_injured, which was something you could say less often than you'd wish at Hogwarts.

In fact, the lesson had been useful for two reasons. First, Lily had learned that if Professor Molukka says that a plant should only be handled with dragon-hide gloves on, he really meant it. Second, the level of concentration needed to escape the greenhouse without injury had meant that she'd had no spare time to worry about Remus.

It wasn't until she had eaten dinner and returned to her common room to get a start on homework before Astronomy that she remembered her sick friend at all. It was not an example of her best timing. Arithmancy was really quite difficult enough without distractions, and for Lily, the prospect of an ailing friend was one of the worst distractions possible.

It was an hour later that she threw her Arithmancy text across the table with a groan; she wasn't getting anywhere. Total time spent on Arithmancy: nearly two hours. Total amount of Arithmancy completed: one problem. Out of six. This was ridiculous. Lily rummaged through her bag for the notes she'd taken during class, hoping to stumble upon some piece of wisdom that she'd been missing for the last hour.

She didn't find any such tidbit of information. What she did find was the letter she'd written to Narcissa the day before but hadn't had a chance to send. Reasoning that she was getting nowhere with Arithmancy, Lily decided to head to the Owlery to distract herself with a nice bout of letter sending. Clutching the note in one hand, she happily left behind the world of numbers and figures and headed out the dormitory and up the spiral staircases to the Owlery.

Glancing out a window, Lily noted that it was quickly darkening. By the looks of things, the sun had just recently set, which gave her about an hour before she had to be at Astronomy. She relaxed, letting herself slow down. It wasn't as late as she'd thought it was; time passes much more slowly when you're doing homework.

Upon reaching the Owlery, she was met with an unexpected sight. Regulus Black wasn't like how House stereotypes dictated he should be. He was quiet, he was well-spoken, he didn't participate in any of the forms of bullying that some of the more prominent members of his house did. He did, however, also exhibit some decidedly Slytherin-esque traits. Foremost among them was his lack of outward emotion; Regulus worked to actively surpress all visible symptoms of emotions.

This stone-facedness was what made the sight that greeted Lily all the more strange. Regulus Black, the boy known (or not known) for being quiet, reserved, for his dignity, was crying. He was sitting underneath a window, a folded piece of parchment clutched tightly in one hand while tears flowed freely from his eyes.

Lily walked towards him quickly and knelt to the ground beside him. She'd never really talked with Regulus before but she wasn't the type to let anybody sit alone while they were clearly distressed, no matter how close they felt.

"Are you okay?" she asked quietly, reaching one hand out to rest on his shoulder.

He jumped at the contact, his face whipping up to meet her gaze. "Where did you come from? Who sent you?"

"I just came up to send a letter. Are you okay?"

His eyes were wide, and they focused on Lily's face. "You're Lily Evans. You're the Head Girl."

"Yes," she confirmed, "That's me. Again, are you okay?"

"Did Dumbledore send you? Does he know about this?" Regulus almost sounded hopeful in a sick, desperate way.

Lily frowned. "Dumbledore hasn't said anything to me about anything. Is there something that he should have told me about?"

"Forget it," Regulus said quietly, "It doesn't matter. Thank you for your concern, but I'm fine. Just distressing news from home. Don't tell Sirius. He'd worry unnecessarily; it's nothing I can't work out." And with that, he stood up and walked around Lily and out the Owlery.

Lily stared at him as he walked out, unsure of how to proceed. Her gut told her to run after him and demand that she let him know what was going on, but she had no right to interfere in family business. She wasn't even particularly close to any of the Blacks other than Narcissa, and she wasn't even at Hogwarts anymore.

In the end, she decided that between Remus and Arithmancy, she had more than enough on her plate for the moment. Besides, Regulus had mentioned Dumbledore, and if something was seriously the matter, the Headmaster would let her know if he needed her help. In all the years she'd known him, she'd questioned his judgement only once, and even that single time didn't seem as valid as it had at the moment; James wasn't as awful of a Head Boy as she'd thought he would be.

And so, Lily selected a tawny barn owl from the rafters, calling him to her with a soft whistle. She tied the letter to the bird's leg, rubbing his head affectionately and whispering, "Narcissa Black. She might be near Lucius Malfoy, if that helps any" before watching the messenger fly into the night, hooting softly as it did.

Having completed her task, she returned to her dormitory to pick up her things and headed off for Astronomy. She made her way to the highest tower and happily greeted Julia. "Hi! Where're Mary and Alice?"

Julia shook her head. "Alice said it was too late to have class, so she decided that she didn't want to do Astronomy anymore."

Lily snickered. "Sounds like Alice. Mary just went along with it?"

Julia nodded. "She said that she didn't feel right about Alice being alone in the dormitory."

Lily's attention was caught by the arrival of the rest of the class. Lily noted with some consternation that Remus looked even worse than he did before, barely responding to the jokes being thrown around by the other Marauders.

"Julia," she whispered to her friend, "You said that it was the 'wrong time of the month' for Remus to be sick, right?"

"Yes," she replied, "He was sick ten days ago. He shouldn't be sick again for about three more weeks."

"Ten days? How did you know that? We weren't at school ten days ago."

"James' parents came to my house," Julia said matter-of-factly, as if that was adequate explanation.

"Er. Right. And?"

"And what?"

"James' parents came to your house. And that means what in terms of Remus being sick?"

"James' parents come to visit daddy once a month. At the same time of the month that Remus is sick!"

Lily blinked. "Julia, I'm sure that's just a coincidence."

"If you say so, Lily."

Lily was about to respond, but her attention was called to the beginning of the lesson. Professor Albedo instructed them to follow her lead, observing the moon and filling in its stages.

Lily dutifully obeyed; Astronomy wasn't necessarily difficult, it was more mind-numbing than anything else. The danger wasn't of miscasting a spell, but of falling asleep before finishing ones charts.

Full moon. Waning gibbous. Waning crescent. New moon. Waxing crescent. Waxing gibbous. Full moon. Rinse. Repeat.

It was tedious work, but it was a subject that Lily found interesting. While she was growing up, she'd been fascinated by the muggle space missions, and the reaches of space still held a certain fascination over her.

It wasn't until she'd been running over the charts for nearly forty five minutes in almost complete silence that the link hit her. She scanned over her chart again once, twice, to see if she'd made a mistake, but it didn't look like she had. Her heart thundered in her chest as she leaned over to ask Julia to verify her realization.

"Julia," she whispered, "What day exactly did Remus last get sick?"

Julia thought about it for a second, before responding. "Last Sunday."

Lily's heart skipped a beat. "So. That was the last full moon, then?"

Julia scanned her chart quickly. "Yes!"

"And then he'll be sick again... Third Monday from now?"

Julia nodded. "That sounds right."

The dates matched up, and Lily had found her first hypothesis. Looking at the information that she had in front of her, it was hard to form a counter-argument.

Lily Evans' closest male friend was a werewolf.

* * *

_Author's Note: This doesn't count as a cliff-hanger. Right? Right. Because I decided to myself that I wouldn't be ending chapters on cliff-hangers. This, however, is not a cliff-hanger._

_Reviews are pre-unwrapped Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!_


	5. Things We Said Today

_Author's Note: Wow, that was a long hiatus. I apologize. I'm alive, though! Life and Senior Fall got in the way, but I've managed to worm my way into college through Early Action, so really, life is good. So you should be getting more updates more frequently (but no promises, I've responsibilities still... I'll try, though.) Also, yes, Lucius and Narcissa have only been dating for a few months, but they're a fantastic pair (honestly, they're my Golden Trio Era OTP) and when Voldemort's around, you don't really wait to get married. So there._

_I'm not sure how any of these characters are passing their O.W.L.'s or N.E.W.T.'s to be honest, because they seem to spend more time skiving than in class. Whoops._

_Reviews are college acceptance letters._

**Things We Said Today**

Of course, no ship as large as the _HMS Lily_ can cut such a path through the ocean and fail to attract attention; look around, the denizens of the sea are talking. There are events in motion, storms brewing, ships sailing, and the sea is noticing and the sea is talking. If you're quiet (and I mean very quiet – sound travels through water to your ears like a knife through cold taffy) perhaps you can catch a snatch of conversation here and there, words exchanged between divers, between waves, between sea creatures, and even, perhaps, an interaction between the ship herself and one of the sea's great waves. Hold your breath now, and again – quiet. Watch out for the change in pressure (drink a glass of water, or two, or three), and blink until your eyes accustom to the darkness, and listen. Listen.

* * *

Sunlight streamed in through the curtainless window in a small flat in Diagon Alley. Narcissa blinked at the sudden assault of her eyelids before opening her eyes completely. She scanned the room for her boyfriend, but he wasn't to be found. "Lucius?" she called, but there was no response. She decided to just snuggle back up underneath the covers and wait for his return – he'd probably just popped out for a coffee or something. She smiled contentedly. She was, in this moment, in heaven. She rubbed her belly absentmindedly in anticipation of her news: she was pregnant, had found out the night before, but hadn't had the opportunity yet to let Lucius know.

The door rattled and her heart surged. He was back. "Cissa?" she heard his voice cry out. "It's nearly two, I hope you're awake by now."

"I'm awake!" she called back. "Where'd you go? Come back to bed. I miss you."

She heard the tap of his feet as he made his way to the bedroom (their bedroom!) and gently opened the door. "Morning," he said, a warm grin plastered across the angular lines of his face. "Sleep well?"

"Where'd you go? I woke up and didn't know where you'd gone. I thought maybe you'd left me for your other girlfriend," she teased.

He laughed, then winced. "I've been found out! How long have you known of my secret affair with those little chocolate croissants from the bakery across the street?" He crossed over and sat on the edge of the bed.

She poked him in the ribs. "It wasn't hard to guess. Usually people are a little more discreet – your affair's starting to show."

He scowled.

"Oh come off it," she laughed. "We can be in this together. I have a feeling that I'm going to be blowing up quite large myself."

Lucius Malfoy's brow furrowed in confusion, before: "You don't mean..."

Her only response was to sit up and kiss her boyfriend soundly on the lips. "You'd better leave that other lady then. It wouldn't be fitting of a Malfoy to leave his pregnant girlfriend all alone, now would it?"

Lucius shook his head, breaking himself out of his reverie. "You- When did you find out? I mean-" He paused. "No, that's not right. That's not the question I wanted to ask."

This time it was Narcissa who looked confused as Lucius rummaged around in the pockets of his cloak for a few moments, muttering fiendishly about goblins and how they "gave him the willies" before pulling a small box out of his inside breast pocket.

"Narcissa-" he started, opening the box to reveal a delicately wrought white-gold ring showcasing a small emerald, "I know that I've only known you for a little-"

Lucius Malfoy never got to finish his proposal. After all, asking somebody to marry you is rather difficult when that someone in particular is attached, rather enthusiastically, to your lips.

* * *

Peter Pettigrew scratched absentmindedly at his chin with the tip of his quill, oblivious to the fact that he was staining his face blue. _Owl Mother_, he eventually wrote, _v. important we reassure her that classes are going well. Don't want her to worry._

He glanced idly around the room, his eyes eventually falling (as they tended to do) on Julia.

_Also: Saito looks v. good in blue. Not Ravenclaw blue. Light blue. Remember, in case opportunity arises to buy her a gift._

Keeping notes like these was a habit that Peter had had for as long as he could remember. His mother hadn't been around much, it was difficult, after all, to be a single mother, even in the Wizarding World, but she had managed to instill in her only child the importance of organization.

The lists had been a source of mockery for a while, as any peculiarity among schoolchildren is wont to be. Sirius in particular had derived great pleasure from filching Peter's books and reading his notes out loud in full dramatic fashion. This continued for several weeks into the Marauder's collective friendship until Sirius realized that Peter wasn't perturbed by his antics and that the smaller boy would continue to write notes to himself no matter how much he was teased for them. And so Peter's notes were left alone and Sirius found other things of Peter's to mock and tease.

_Purchase Love Potion to get Sirius back for the loo incident. Make him moony over that one fifth year Hufflepuff that he keeps telling to get a "haircut and a new face."_

* * *

There was a long list of things that Regulus would like to do over and above speaking with his mother about his future as a member of the Black family. However, the world wasn't always entirely kind, so there Regulus sat, alone in his dorm room (cutting Charms) speaking to his mother via the Floo Network.

It wasn't anything that he hadn't heard before, but there was an urgency in her tone that gave Regulus pause. His mother was also far more lucid than she had been the last time they'd talked, but a lucid Mrs. Black was somehow far more terrifying than a deranged one.

"Regulus," she warned, "This isn't some hypothetical; the Blacks have their sources, and Voldemort is gaining power."

"Mother," Regulus replied testily, "I still don't see how you make the logical jump from 'Xenophilius Lovegood was fired from the Prophet' to 'Regulus needs to be prepared to enlist in muggle-born genocide."

"Listen!" she snapped, "It's not about the logical jump. If nothing comes of it, fine, all the better for you. You can live with a clear conscience; I'm telling you to be prepared, because this _is _happening."

"What is it that you wanted from me again?"

"You know your brother," Mrs. Black said quietly, "He'd never sign up. Ever. He'd die first. Your uncle Abraxas has it on good authority that Voldemort's going to ask just that – he wants pure-blood volunteers from each family."

"Right. And?"

"Sirius would never join. He's chosen his own path. If Voldemort does try to recruit, you need to take his place."

Regulus' face was stony. "And how do you figure that?"

"You've heard the stories!" Mrs. Black hissed, "You know what he'll do if we refuse! He'll kill the family if we try to work against him."

Regulus' hand floated towards his cheek where one finger began to trace where once there had been a gash. "Forgive me, mother," he said quietly, "For not being convinced that I have to join Voldemort to protect you."

She looked mournful, an emotion that was entirely out of place on a Black visage. "I haven't been a good mother, Regulus. I realize that. Not to you or to Sirius. But I'm trying to change that."

"You're asking me to abolish my moral code and to join up with a murderer, _mother_."

"Sirius made his choice. I'm just trying to support that."

"Yes, by completely disregarding my choices."

"I'm not- You know how Sirius is. You know how he is."

"So what you're telling me is that his choices are more important than mine are?"

Mrs. Black gaped. "No! Regulus, no, listen, it's not about that. It's about preserving what we can of our family, of trying to do what's best for everyone."

"No," Regulus snapped, "It's about what's best for Sirius. I've been thinking these last couple of days about what it is that I want, and it's not this."

"Reg-"

"I have my own life, mother. I'm not some servant that will jump when you snap your fingers."

"Just listen to me, Regulus! Please!"

It was too late. The youngest Black had already gotten to his feet and was preparing to extinguish the fire, a snarl clouding his otherwise handsome features.

"Please, Regulus. Do it for your broth-"

It was symbolic of something that Regulus felt the need to snuff out his mother's avatar mid-mention of Sirius, but he wasn't sure what yet. It wasn't resentment; he loved his brother, no matter that family honor dictated he shouldn't. It wasn't jealousy; Sirius had made his choices and Regulus could make his.

Of course, it's easier to see what it is from outside of the situation. While Regulus couldn't possibly know it at the time, it was disillusionment. Sirius had long been the unapproachable, unassailable older brother who had ever been able to forge his own path. He wasn't supposed to need Regulus' help to survive. He was supposed to protect Regulus, not the other way around.

Sirius would, in time, owe Regulus a debt that he would never know that he owed, a debt that he would never be able to repay.

* * *

Sirius sat quietly on his bed, one arm resting on drawn up knees. He fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with a quiet incantation before taking a long drag.

"Oi," said the boy across him. "I thought we agreed to quit."

"Nah," Sirius responded, "Only around people who'd nark, wasn't it?"

James frowned but waved his hand in defeat. "It'd kind of go against the whole reason I quit to go inform the Head Girl then, wouldn't it?"

Sirius chuckled. "It would, at that. You had to prove to Evans that you were all squeaky-clean, didn't you? How's that going?"

James groaned and flopped over backwards, pulling Peter's pillow over his face. "Fine. Excellent. It's brill, Padfoot."

"Right, which is why you're here complaining to me instead of being out there winning her heart," Sirius remarked with a sage nod. "Reverse psychology, Prongsy, I like it."

Sirius earned a fierce glare for that one, although it was sustained for only the few seconds that James felt inclined to lift his head up off of the bed.

"Shut it," came the eventual reply.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "But really, Prongs, I mean, I get the whole 'maturity' thing, but you two seem to be friendly enough, she can't stop talking to you in classes. Why not just ask her out?"

Silence filled the room. Sirius sat patiently, sucking on the end of his cigarette as he waited for his best friend to respond. Eventually, James sat up.

"It's like- It's- Okay. You know how up until now, none of us except Moony really knew who Evans was?"

Sirius snorted. "You finally realized that you've been fawning over a girl that you've never held a decent conversation with for five years? Impressive."

James scowled. "Stuff it. I mean, I always thought she was this certain kind of person, you know? Studious, really careful about rules, really careful in general, uptight."

Sirius nodded. "Right. She's not like that?"

"Not at all."

"And?"

James frowned. "And what?"

"And how does that make you feel, Prongsy?" Sirius asked with a grin. "That Evans doesn't quite match the girl you made up in your head?"

The Head Boy scratched at the nape of his neck thoughtfully. "It's- It's strange."

Sirius nodded. "Eloquent. And helpful. Definitely helpful."

"Swot."

"Look, do you want to talk about it or don't you? Only that I'd be perfectly fine just smoking, but you seem to want to talk about Evans."

"I just-"

"Do you still like her or not? We can start simple."

James didn't even have to think about it. "Yes."

Sirius frowned as his cigarette shortened to filter. He stubbed it out on the bed post before flicking it out the open window. "Right. So she's different than how you pictured her, but that's okay because you still like her, but you can't ask her out because...?"

"It's..." James scratched at the nape of his neck for a couple of seconds, struggling to pull together the right words to make his best friend understand. "It's like, if I ask her out now and get rejected again, it'd be by the real Evans, and that'd make it final. Before, I knew that I didn't know her and that she didn't know me, so being rejected didn't mean anything, but now it would. Does that make sense?"

Sirius nodded. "So what's the plan, then?"

"Be her mate, I guess? Or, at least, be her mate until I can convince her that I'm not a total prat and that she should go out with me."

Sirius grinned happily. "That sounds more the Prongs I know and love."

James rolled his eyes. "Don't go all sappy on me here, mate."

"No, really, you sound much better. I'd ask you if you wanted to go replace Filch's liquid soap with paint, but I promised Moons that I'd be good."

James glanced at his watch. "Well seeing as how we've already missed half of whatever class we were supposed to be in for this little chat, it wouldn't really make sense to show up for only the last twenty minutes of-" he glanced at his schedule, "Transfiguration, would it?"

"Positively disruptive to the rest of the class, I'd think."

"My thoughts exactly, Padfoot."

* * *

_Do _not_ understand Switching Spells for human targets – ask Sirius or James about them later on. Actually, ask James instead. If all goes well, Sirius will not be pleased with me over the next few days._

* * *

Narcissa didn't quite think that she could be happier. It was just a label, just a term, but somehow, things felt different now that Lucius was no longer just her boyfriend but her fiance. It wasn't even just that the sex was somehow better; there was a feeling that she couldn't quite place; she was warmer, fuller, more content. She rolled over onto her side to look at her fiance. "I love you," she whispered.

Lucius smiled, a happy little grin. "And I you" he replied. He yawned and opened his eyes. It wasn't proper, really, to have napped so early in the day, but they'd just gotten engaged, so normal rules went out the window. "So. Pregnant. Wow."

She giggled. "That's my eloquent fiance," she teased. "A regular wordsmith, you are."

"This is serious! Really. This changes a lot." His voice had no trace of humor in it, and Narcissa's ears perked up. "Look, think about how our life is going to change given... The current political climate."

"What d'you mean?" Narcissa asked.

Lucius frowned. "I mean, look around – they say that Voldemort is rising."

"And?"

"The latest rumor is that he's going to ask every pure-blood family for a 'volunteer'" Lucius said grimly. "And I don't really see my parents having any other children very soon, meaning that your husband, and the father of your child, will be either a Death Eater or on the run with the rest of his family from a very powerful wizard."

"What are you going to do?" Narcissa whispered, suddenly feeling very cold and very small; the idea of Lucius as a Death Eater, willing or not, terrified her, but that was nothing compared to the idea of not knowing whether or not he was safe, of not knowing where he was or if he was even alive.

"What I have to," he replied. "I'm not going to let anybody hurt you." There was a fierce look in his eyes as he looked at his fiancee. "You're my family now, and protecting you comes first."

"So does that mean-"

"Yes. If he asks me to join, I'm going to. I will not have my wife and child living on the run in times like this."

Narcissa didn't even register the assumption Luicus had made that should he be forced to flee that she would follow with their child. Her mind was too focused on the implications of being married to a Death Eater. "I'll have to stop writing to Lily," she whispered, "Won't I?"

Lucius frowned. "What do you mean?"

"She's a Muggle-born. I can't have contact with her. It would look bad on us, and we have to keep our baby safe."

"'Cissa, I didn't mean to alarm you and I don't want us to jump to any hasty conclusions, I was just noting that it's a possibility tha-"

"No," Narcissa said firmly. "Our baby comes first, and I will not endanger my child."

* * *

It was nearly time for dinner and Lily hadn't seen Remus all day. She hadn't been going out of her way to seek him out, but she had kept her eyes peeled for him, wanting to find him, to talk to him, to verify her theory. She hadn't slept well the night before, her mind running over the myriad ways that her inevitable conversation with her friend could proceed. She wasn't nervous; this was still the same Remus that she'd been friends with for years, but it was a conversation that had the potential to shape how she and that same Remus would proceed as friends.

After a few fruitless minutes of trying to make a dent in her Transfiguration work, she decided to head to the Gryffindor Common Room to see if she could find him.

It was a stroke of luck, she thought, that he was the only one in the Common Room when she arrived. Sitting alone on one of the couches, Remus Lupin was hunched over his Charms book, scowling at the page on the Protean.

"Hi," Lily said quietly, sitting down next to him. "Having trouble?"

"I'd ask Prongs- er, James, for help, but he's having a 'talk' with Sirius, which means that no one's allowed in the room." He shrugged. "Peter went down to the kitchens, he said he was hungry."

"But dinner's in about half an hour," Lily said disapprovingly.

"The house-elves don't mind. Anyway, Peter said that he had some things to do during dinner, some errand or something for his mother."

Silence filled the room for a minute or so while each party collected their thoughts. "I ought to tell you something," Remus eventually said, "Can we go somewhere else?"

Lily nodded, and followed Remus to an empty classroom. Lily sat on the teacher's desk, legs crossed beneath her while Remus leaned against one of the smaller ones. He furrowed his brow in thought and tugged nervously at one earlobe. Finally, he spoke. "Lily," he said, "I- I- there's something I have to tell you. About why I've been sleeping poorly and looking tired."

Lily nodded. She knew what was coming.

"It's- I'm telling you this because you're my friend, because you won't judge me the way the others will." Remus was beginning to tear up. He pulled out a chair and sat down, clutching his shaking hands to his chest. "I- I can't have the school knowing, I can't have anybody knowing."

"Remus, it's okay," Lily soothed, trying to keep reassure her friend that it was okay, that she wasn't going to tell anybody, that he was safe. "It's okay."

His whole body was shaking now, his head bent over his knees.

"I know you're a werewolf," she said, as the whispered words "I'm gay," left his lips.

They both stared at each other for several moments.

"What?" they both asked.

Lily blinked, and then started her explanation. "I- I noticed that you missed class a lot, and that it was regular, and that it was always on the full moon." She took a deep breath. "The excuses were always different, but it was always on the full moon that you were gone, and you always look tired and worn for a few days before and after. It was the only explanation that I could come up with."

Remus looked at her weakly. "You- You haven't told anybody, have you?"

Lily shook her head. "Of course not. I only made the connection yesterday, and I'd never give that kind of information out."

"Right. Thanks." He looked about ready to cry. "I- I understand if you don't feel comfortable around me anymore. It's- It's fine."

Lily gaped. The idea of feeling uncomfortable around Remus hadn't even occurred to her. "I- What?"

"Most people don't feel very safe around people like- Like me."

"I- No! Remus, no." Lily got up and crossed to her friend, throwing her bending down slightly to throw her arms around him. "Remus, no. I'm not going anywhere. What kind of a friend would I be if I ditched you because you were... Different?"

Remus snorted. "You sound like James. He calls it my 'furry problem.'"

Lily's eyes widened. "Oh, is that what that was? I always just assumed you were hiding a pet or something in your room."

He shrugged. "But really. You're okay with this? You're not freaked out? You're not afraid I'm going to maul you or kill you in your sleep or something?"

Lily laughed. "Remus, I figure if you wanted to do anything like that, you could have done it years ago. Besides, it's not like my being your friend or not would keep me that much safer, would it?"

"I- I guess not," he conceded.

"Right. Now hold on a bit, what did you say earlier? You're gay?"

Remus looked around frantically as he shushed the Head Girl. "Don't say it so loud!"

Lily rolled her eyes. "I _am_ a witch," she said, pointing her wand at the door. "_Silencio_. Better?"

Remus nodded. "Right. Yeah. Sorry. I'm just- You're the first person I've told."

Lily grinned. "I'm honored, Remus." Her grin turned wicked and she leaned in conspiratorially. "So. D'you have your eyes on anybody in particular, then?"

He groaned and covered his face.

"I take it that's a yes then."

He nodded weakly.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, Remus. I'll live."

"No, no, I want to tell you. I have to tell you. I have to tell somebody." He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. "It's just... Saying it out loud makes it real, y'know?"

She nodded silently, waiting for him to continue.

"It's- It's Sirius. I'm in love with Sirius Black." The words tumbled out of his mouth and he grimaced. "I'm in love with Sirius Black," he repeated, closing his eyes and sighing. "Merlin, that feels good to say out loud."

That was a shock. She'd have believed Peter Pettigrew, maybe Frank Longbottom, but Sirius Black? "Remus," she started, "He's... I mean... I don't think-"

"Yeah," he said sadly, "I know."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, neither one wanting to break the silence. It wasn't until Lily's stomach let out an unhappy gurgle that either of the two Gryffindors realized just how long they'd been talking. The tension of the moment dissolved and the two burst out laughing. "Shall we to dinner, then?" Lily asked after they had calmed down.

Remus nodded, feeling happy for the first time that day. They'd made it out the door and had started towards the Great Hall when he turned to catch Lily in a tight hug. "Thanks," he whispered.

Lily smiled and kissed him on the cheek. "Don't worry about it, Remus. That's what I'm here for."

Neither of the two noticed, but if an one were to listen very closely, it's quite possible that they'd hear something else. Somebody, invisible in the corridor, on his own way to dinner having just returned from Filch's broom closet growled at the sight in front of him.

* * *

_Love Potion was more expensive than anticipated. Excess taken out of chocolate frog budget._

* * *

James paced around the kitchen, one hand running angrily through his hair. The two Marauders made an interesting scene: James was a bundle of nervous energy, pacing, muttering, radiating anxiety in waves, while Sirius sat at one of the tables looking almost bored with the whole process.

"I'm telling you, Padfoot, Moony's encroaching on my girl!"

Sirius snorted. "First off, Prongs, she's not your girl yet. She's barely started talking civilly towards you, and if you hadn't noticed, she's been on speaking terms with Moons since the first term of first year. So she's probably more his girl than yours. Secondly, Moons knows that you're creepily obsessed with her, so he wouldn't do that to you. It's not like him to go behind our backs."

James levelled a glare at his best friend that would cause any other student in the school (and perhaps a few teachers) to cower, but Sirius just rolled his eyes. "Padfoot, aren't you supposed to be on my side here?"

"I'm saying that you don't need to have a side, here, Prongs. Moons isn't doing anything with Evans; you know they're friends, she was probably just helping him with Charms or something like that. Anyway, I thought we'd agreed that Moons was about as sexual as a grindylow."

James groaned. "Padfoot, mate, have you been paying attention at all? Have you seen the way Moony acts? He's in love. Trust me. I know the symptoms." He gestured helplessly at his own chest.

"Oh, is that what it is?" Sirius shrugged, "I just figured that the two of you had too much starch in your pants or something."

"Not helping, Padfoot."

Sirius rolled his eyes (he could just hear his mother now: "Sirius Black, if you keep making faces, I'll charm it to stick!") "Tell you what, Prongsy, I'll ask him about it tonight, if it'll make you stop whining. Sound good?"

James stopped pacing, as if the thought that Sirius could actually talk to Lupin instead of attempting to Divine his thoughts was a revelation. "Yeah. Yeah, it does. Thanks, mate."

"Don't mention it. Really, don't. I'm hungry, and it's hard to eat when you insist on talking."

* * *

Melanie Greengrass lay awake that night mulling over the events of the previous day. Lily Evans, Head Girl, had offered to tutor her, Melanie Greengrass, Second Year Slytherin, personally in Charms. Were the situation any different, she'd have jumped at the opportunity. After all, there when Narcissa had left, she'd lost her older-sister-role-model figure in the castle, and Lily seemed a perfect fit for that role.

Of course, she wasn't sure if the offer would be quite as attractive were she not so lonely. She felt utterly out of place in her House. Half of her wanted to take up Lily's offer in order to pass Charms, while the other half of her wanted to take up Lily's offer in order to have a real live person to actually talk to. She thought enviously of how the others in her House seemed, well, if not completely thrilled, at least content with the social climate of Slytherin. They seemed to get along fine – nobody complained, nobody else seemed to have the same problems that she did.

And that was why, really, the idea of being tutored by Lily Evans was appealing. She didn't feel at home in Slytherin. Instead, she rather felt as if the House that she'd been sorted into had looked at her, scratched it's head a bit, and decided "Nah, you know what? The Hat made a mistake with this one." There wasn't anyone that she could identify with, nobody that she felt comfortable talking to, nobody that seemed to have the same difficulty fitting in.

She would have to take up the Head Girl's offer, she eventually decided, or else run the risk of eventual but inevitable insanity. That said, it would really be all the more comfortable for every involved party should the tutoring sessions remain a secret, or at least, not common knowledge.

* * *

_Author's Note: Wow this chapter is late I am so sorry. As I have said above. Ahem. Still, I apologize. I'm into college now though, so I ought to have a little more time for this, but still, fingers crossed, yeah?_

_Yeah_.

_Reviews are excellent, really. I'm not going to sugar-coat it, they'd be lovely._


	6. We Can Work It Out

_Blah __blah __blah __disclaimers __etc__._

_AN__: __Hello __again__. __We __shall __see __where __this __goes__. __But __until __then__, __chapter __six__:_

**We ****Can ****Work ****It ****Out**

Time flew at Hogwarts. This wasn't news to any of the students, but with graduation, job hunting, and the real world looming, the fact that a month had already passed was enough to make Remus uneasy. Hogwarts was something of a bubble for him; as a werewolf, as a homosexual, the real world would not be a forgiving place. He was terrified of what it entailed - memories of the abuse he'd read about, heard about, witnessed first hand, sped through his mind whenever a classmate mentioned their plans after Hogwarts. And so it was that on a cold friday night (or saturday morning) in early October, Remus Lupin found himself utterly unable to sleep. His bedclothes were clammy and damp, and stuck uncomfortably to his body. He stood up, hands moving to the hem of his shirt to pull it off, but jumped back in surprise when he realized that he wasn't alone, that there was a figure at the window, a cigarette glowing red between its fingers.

"Can't sleep?" Sirius asked innocently.

"Merlin," Remus gasped, "Sirius, what're you doing?"

He shrugged. "James doesn't want me to smoke anymore, so I've gotta light up when I know he won't be around. 3 AM's one of those times that generally works pretty well. You?"

"I- Well. I-" Lupin sat down, his heart still pounding, but all thought of werewolves and angry mobs gone. "I was just thinking about what'll happen after Hogwarts."

Sirius nodded sagely. "Ah, yes. Joining the workforce and all that. You know that you don't have to, yeah? Prongs and my offer still stands."

Remus shook his head. "Still not accepting, Padfoot. "Best Friend Who Can Also Turn Into A Wolf Every Few Weeks" is not a job title that I can be proud of."

Sirius grinned and shrugged. "Whatever you say, mate." He motioned to Lupin's shirt. "You don't have to keep that on on my account."

"W-what?"

"You stood up to take it off, right? You've got nothing I haven't seen before, you don't have to keep the shirt on if it's too warm. I mean, it's frigid in here, but whatever. One of those wolf things, I guess."

"N- No. No, I was standing up to stretch," Remus lied, "I'm fine now." The time of night and the cool air, and Sirius' silhouette as he leaned against the window frame with the starry sky behind him was already pushing his concentration; there was no need to add to it by removing any clothing.

Sirius nodded slowly before taking a last drag on the cigarette. He ground the butt into the stone of the window frame and flicked it outside. "Uh-huh. Look, Moons, you sure you okay?"

"Come again?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Oh come off it. Everyone can tell that something's up. Hell, even Wormy's noticed, and it took him a week to realize that he wasn't actually allergic to showering and that I was just putting doxy powder in his pants. Anyway, Prongs figures you're in love, but I told him you're as sexual as a gargoyle."

Remus' head started to pound. "Prongs said what now?" he asked, trying to keep the quiver out of his voice.

Sirius laughed. "Yeah, he figures you're in love and he's afraid it's Evans. He asked me to make sure you're not encroaching on his bird. So this is me checking to see if you're encroaching on his bird."

There was a beat before Remus could answer. "James can rest assured that I am not at all interested in Lily."

"Good. What's so funny?"

"You wouldn't get it."

Remus laughed for another full minute before an angry voice broke through. "Look, I know I'm a heavy sleeper and all, but it is 3 AM in the morning and I have things to do this weekend. Shut it and let a bloke sleep."

Sirius chuckled. "Sorry Worms. We'll keep it down. Wouldn't want to mess with your big plans or nothing," he said, before winking at Remus and flopping into his bed.

And suddenly Remus felt a lot better.

* * *

"Alice, is the blanket fort really necessary? It's like forty degrees in here."

"Mary, I told you, this is a top-secret meeting."

"Yeah, but can't we just Silencio and Colloportus the door or something?"

Alice began to pout. "Julia, explain to her the importance of the Fort of Secrecy."

"The Fort of Secrecy is specially designed to capture and reinforce creative brainwaves while keeping out intruders and keeping them from listening in, spying on, smelling, or otherwise detecting the conspirators within due to advanced Pillow technology."

"Was that all one breath? And besides, I thought you hated enclosed areas."

"This isn't an enclosed area! This is the Fort of Secrecy."

"I'm really not sure I see the differen-"

"Mary!" Alice cut in, "This is important!"

Mary let out a sigh. "Fine, Al, I'm paying attention. What'd you call this meeting for?"

Alice's grin was ferocious. "I hereby call to order this emergency meeting of the team behind Operation: Jily!" ("Lames," Julia remarked.) "On today's agenda: gaining proof that James really and truly loves Lily, and getting our romantically-challenged Head Girl to realize it!"

Julia clapped, before saying, "I vote we follow him using Invisibility Cloaks!"

Mary frowned. "Julia, we don't have any Invisibility Cloaks."

"Oh. Right." The tall girl thought for a second, before coming up with a solution. "We should have a fundraiser, then! We can have a bake-sale!"

"No, no," Alice replied, "That's no good. No one would buy anything from a bake-sale when we have house-elves."

"We could free the house-elves?"

"Ooh, I was going to suggest learning Disillusionment Charms, but that's much better."

"Yes! I think so too. We'll need a distraction, a giant sled, and eight hundred pairs of socks."

"I think I know somebody who knits! And Hagrid should have a sled we can use!" Alice added enthusiastically.

"Ooh, good, then we just have to get the wool. What color d'you think, Mary?"

Things, Mary decided, were getting out of hand. "If we're just trying to get proof that James fancies Lily, can't we just, like, ask him? Or failing that, his friends? I can't see them denying it or anything, the boy's been pretty vocal about his crush for the last, oh, six years."

Alice's face fell. "But that's no fun! And besides, they might lie!"

"He's been saying he's in love with Lils for years, we just need somebody to clarify that he was being honest, right? I'm telling you, Al, just asking one of his friends is the easiest way. And besides, we don't know anybody who could teach us a Disillusionment that quickly."

Alice snorted. "Oh please. We're talented witches. How hard can they really be?"

Mary groaned. "Julia, work with me here. You know it'd be easier to just talk to one of James' friends."

Julia nodded. "But it wouldn't be as fun!"

Mary took a deep breath. Sometimes she wasn't quite sure if she was going to school or babysitting. Now was one of those times. "Yeah, but won't it be more fun to see James and Lily together sooner?"

Julia's eyes widened. Mary had a point. She nodded.

"Julia!" Alice cried, distraught. "Not you too! Don't you see the value of the plan? What if they lie? We have to know that they're telling the truth for this to work."

Weekend or not, there were piles of homework that needed to be done, and this was going nowhere. "Al, if that's what you're worried about, you can be the one to do the questioning, okay?"

The brunette thought about it for a minute, before frowning. "Fine, I'll do it. I'll talk to Sirius next time I see him."

"Sirius? Why him in particular?"

"Because he's James' best mate!" A pause, and then: "Also he's the fittest."

Mary scowled.

* * *

It wasn't uncommon to find Lily Evans in the library on a Saturday morning. In fact, if you were to ask her friends, it was entirely possible that it happened all too frequently. Unusually, on this particular Saturday, Lily was not alone. The red-head watched with satisfaction as the second-year Slytherin screwed up her eyes, took a deep breath, and quietly whispered "_accio__quill__._" The look of delight on the younger girl's face as the feather zipped towards her was priceless.

"See?" Lily said, "It's not that bad. You just have to be more deliberate with your wand-movement. Haphazard wandwork is the most common mistake in Charms, but it's also one of the easiest things to correct." She glanced at her watch. "Right. You seem to have gotten the hang of Summoning, so I think we should spend a while on Banishing before we break for lunch. Does that sound okay?"

Melanie's eyes were round and huge and darted between Lily and her wand.

"Melanie? Are you okay?"

The blonde girl just hugged Lily, fiercely wrapping her arms around the older girl's waist. "Thank you," she whispered.

Lily blinked. "It- It's not a problem, Melanie."

"Still," the girl replied, "You're helping me. You're not supposed to be helping me."

"Not supposed to- Why wouldn't I help you?"

Melanie let go of Lily and stepped back, looking down at the ground. "You're a Gryffindor and I'm a Slytherin. It's how it works. We're not even supposed to really talk to each other."

Lily snorted. "Melanie, House doesn't mean anything. One of-" She stopped abruptly. Severus wasn't her best friend anymore, she couldn't say that. "One of my oldest friends is in Slytherin. And I didn't stop talking to him just because of that," she finished, not untruthfully.

Melanie frowned. "Who?" she couldn't help but ask. She hadn't heard anything about the Head Girl being friends with one of her housemates besides Narcissa, but then, everyone had been friends with Narcissa.

There was a tightness to Lily's face when she replied. "Can we talk about that some other day?" she asked. "We- we're not really very close anymore. I mean, we stopped talking, but we didn't stop talking just because he was a Slytherin. I-" She smiled weakly at Melanie and shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Sorry. We can talk about that some other day, but regardless of whether or not there's precedent, I'm not going to stop teaching you just because of some stupid House rivalry."

Melanie nodded, but she still looked guarded. Lily sighed. "But yes, I guess that the library might not be the best place to practice. We'll stick it out for today and then spend next week looking for something a bit more private, okay?"

Melanie nodded, eyes shining. She picked up her wand and listened intently to Lily's instructions.

The Banishing charm never stood a chance.

* * *

Remus groaned inwardly. It wasn't the boy's fault, he supposed, but there were times when Remus felt that not only did Sirius know, he deliberately teased. Take, for instance, lunch. He knew it was ridiculous, but he couldn't help feeling like the victim the way Sirius was eating that damn steak. He let out an involuntary growl and licked his lips. He couldn't help it. A crush on its own was hard enough, but a gay crush on his best friend that he bloody well lived with was torture. He was glad, so glad, that Lily knew now, that he had somebody to talk to, but his life wasn't sunshine and daisies. Sleeping with the boy (and not in the way that he'd like, mind you) meant that there were certain other problems that he had no way of relieving. Of course, the wolf-blood wasn't making anything any easier.

And so Remus growled again as he watched that beautiful boy eat his food knowing full well how ridiculous he was being but completely unable to stop.

His growling and lip-licking was rather abruptly brought to a halt when he realized that Peter was staring at him. "You okay, Moony?" the boy asked seriously. "Only there's a whole plate of steaks right there so I'm not sure why you're so intent on the one Padfoot's eating."

Remus flushed crimson but covered (very smoothly, he thought) by throwing his fork over his shoulder and dramatically dropping to the floor to look for it. Who said werewolves were all strength and no subtlety? No one, that's who.

After a few seconds of, in his opinion, rather convincing searching, confident he could keep a straight face free of flush, Remus popped back up to the table, fork in hand. "Got it!" he crowed to a bemused Peter. He wiped the utensil off on his robes and politely excused himself from the table. He was barely outside of the Great Hall when his heart began to pound. He had been so close to being caught. If it had been anyone other than Peter... He shuddered. He'd have to be more careful in the future. Somehow.

He was deep in thought, plotting how best to mysteriously contrive to infect Sirius with a mild enough case of dragon pox such that the boy would have to miss several weeks of class (and by extension, several weeks of contact with Remus) when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He jumped, spun, and tried to whip his wand out, but succeeded only in yanking on a handful of his robes and collapsing to the floor.

"Er," said the voice of Mary MacDonald, "I can come back, Remus, if this is a bad time or something."

Relieved that he wasn't under attack, Remus stood up and dusted off the front of his robes. "Nope!" he chirped. "Everything's fine over here, Mary! Perfectly alright. Nothing strange going on at all."

"You sure?" Mary asked, "I just wanted to ask you a couple of things about our illustrious Head Boy, but it's not pressing or anything."

Remus nodded. "That's fine! Yes. Questions about James are fine."

They began to walk, looking for an empty classroom to house their discussion. As they moved further and further from the Great Hall (and more importantly Sirius Black) Remus began to calm down, gradually becoming more and more like himself. "So," he eventually asked as they turned a corner on the second floor, "Why're you coming to me?"

For the briefest of moments, Mary's face tightened almost imperceptibly, but it returned to normal as she spoke. "Well, one of us girls had to go information-gathering, and I'm afraid Alice is going to spend her time flirting with Sirius instead of questioning him."

Remus scowled, but managed to catch himself. "I see," he said lightly, "And what kind of information are you looking for about James?"

"Just confirmation that he actually fancies her. Something that we can use as evidence."

"Evidence?" She might as well have said "We want to know about his love-child with Slughorn," or else "Dumbledore and Grindlewald were totally shagging," or "_confundo_" for all he understood. "Why d'you need evidence that James fancies her?"

Mary shrugged. "It's Julia's idea, really. It's the first step in her and Alice's grand scheme to become the godmothers to a Potter-Evans child."

Remus stared at her, trying to gauge how serious she was being. "Evidence, though? Hasn't he asked her out enough for it to count as evidence?" He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I mean... If that wasn't evidence enough, then Peter and I ended up in the Hospital Wing last Easter for nothing, didn't we?"

The memory made Mary grin - that had been an especially ludicrous proposal by James. "You'd think, wouldn't you? Julia's theory is that Lily thinks that you lot have just been making fun of her for six years."

Remus winced. "I guess that's believable. It'd also explain a lot." He sighed. "I'll go poke around James' room and see if I can't find anything." He had just the thing in mind, too.

* * *

Yes, Tom supposed, he could have used Polyjuice Potion - that would have worked just as nicely, would have been more practical, even, if less pleasant on the tongue. However, it lacked that certain dramatic flair that peeling off a layer of skin did, and so it was that Tom Marvolo Riddle, having infiltrated the home of Millicent Bagnold, peeled off the face that had previously belonged to her butler. He did so with not a twinge of regret - the late Mr. Shillings (half-blood) had kept such good care of his skin; such a supple and fine disguise was hard to come by these days.

Ms. Bagnold whipped out her wand, and without hesitation, flung a rather nasty electric blue curse at the intruder. With one hand, Tom lazily batted it to the side where it struck a lamp which promptly burst into brilliant violet flames, before chiding her with a gentle voice. "Tsk, tsk, Minister," he said, "No need for so warm of a welcome. I came only to talk over a few matters with you, I mean you no harm."

"No harm?" the Minister of Magic seethed, her eyes wide with anger, "You are the most wanted man in England. You have slaughtered dozens of innocents. You walked into my house, killed my butler, wore his skin, and you mean me no harm?" She punctuated her last word with a slash of her wand.

Tom touched his cheek with two fingers, grinning when he pulled them back to see that they were slick with blood. "Lovely, Minister. Really, truly wonderful. It's been a long time since someone has marked me, but really. I am just here to talk." He snapped his fingers and the wooden planks beneath their feet writhed and twisted, until Bagnold was bound tightly from neck to toe in thick vines. Tom chuckled as he walked over to her, plucking her wand out of her grasp and moving it behind her ear. "So let's talk."

It was a kindness, he thought, that he'd allowed her enough slack to nod her head. Really, his reputation for cruelty was ill-deserved when it truly came down to it.

* * *

"Right," Sirius snapped, throwing aside his copy of _Transfiguration __for __the __Creative __and __Disturbed_, "Wormy, what in the name of Merlin is so funny? I know it's not the book you're holding, because I'm pretty sure you can't read, and you're at the wrong angle to see your face in the mirror, so what's up?"

From the other side of their room, Peter shook his head quickly. "I don't know what you're talking about, Padfoot. Nothing's funny."

James groaned. "Oh leave him alone, Pads. Don't you have homework to do, or something?"

Sirius' eyes widened. "Homework? Who are you and what have you done with James Potter?" He crossed to Remus' bed where James was lying and began to shake his best friend by the shoulders. "Wormy! Run and find Moons - it's an emergency! Somebody's imperius-ing Prongs!" His lower lip began to quiver.

To his credit, Peter didn't actually leave the room. He did, however, jump up and run to the door before realizing that Sirius was joking.

"Ha ha," James deadpanned, "Good one, mate. I know for a fact you have two feet for Charms that you could be doing instead of yelling at Peter for having fun."

Sirius chuckled and dropped the other boy. "Ahhh, I'll figure something out. Flitwick likes me."

James just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Just lay off of Wormy. It's hard to think when you're going on."

"Hate to interrupt your lascivious thoughts about Evans."

"Git."

"Prat."

The boys sat up and began to throw various bits and pieces from around the room at each other, summoning pillows, or spare quills, or shoes, to reload.

"Guys," Peter interrupted mournfully as a rather smelly used sock flew past his ear, "Stop fighting."

Sirius frowned. "Worms, we're hardly fighting," he said as he threw an open bottle of ink at James.

"Yeah," James added, transfiguring the ink into water, "I'd barely even call this a tiff."

Peter shook his head. "Still. I don't like it when friends fight."

The other two boys looked at each other and then shrugged. "Fair," James said.

Peter brightened. "Good!" he chirped, before turning and rummaging around his bags. "I got cauldron cakes! D'you guys want some?"

James laughed. "Worms, have we ever said no to food?"

Peter grinned, before carefully inspecting them, and tossing a brightly wrapped pastry to his friends. He opened a third himself and took a big bite, watching Sirius intently as he did so.

Sirius finished his quickly and noisily, smacking his lips as he licked his fingers. "Cheers, Worms. Worms? What's the matter - did I get cake on my face?" He began wiping at his cheeks and chin, searching for smears of chocolate.

Peter watched, disappointed, as Sirius rubbed his face. Sirius was many things, but at the moment, madly in love with Hortense Arrow was not one of them. Something was wrong. He looked back through the package of Cakes, but the one that he'd marked with a spot of frosting was definitely gone. Yes, something had clearly gone wrong. Peter scratched thoughtfully at his chin, at a loss as to what to do. He sat and thought for a few minutes, before a wonderful idea came to him, a jewel of clarity in the haze of his consciousness.

"Padfoot, Prongs, I'll be back in a bit."

James looked up. "What's that?"

"I've gotta go ask Hortense for help with something."

"The Hufflepuff bird with the tooth thing?"

The only response was a dreamy sigh.

* * *

On the whole, Tom decided, his little meeting had gone rather well. Just as well as he'd planned for, although, he allowed, his expectations of the Minister had been so low that it would really have been something of a shock if they hadn't. His tongue darted out of his mouth, licking a spot of blood off of his upper lip.

His plans could move along now - he'd given himself some two and a half months to get the Minister to see his side of things, but she'd folded after just three hours of chatting. In retrospect, he was probably too used to dealing with the likes of Albus Dumbledore, he'd forgotten how easy it was to get his way with the rest of society. He shifted dates and battle-lines in his head; he could be ready to go by New Years, and wouldn't that just be deliciously symbolic? He smiled. He would have to send many letters that night.

* * *

The common room in the Head's apartment was quiet. Lily was alone, and even though she'd finished her work some time ago, she found herself staying up. The room was fairly small, and filled as it was with squishy couches and fat chairs, it was rather cozy, but that just magnified the feeling of being alone. The Head Girl sipped her tea (lemon with honey) and told herself that she was not waiting up for James Potter.

Of course, that was a lie and she knew it, but still, old habits died hard, and making fun of James Potter was one of those habits. She'd come to appreciate his company at night, though, when they'd both stay up doing homework, or chatting, or, on more than one occasion, eating dessert that James swore he had not nicked from the kitchens. It was strange, albeit nice, to see the leader of the Marauders in a more relaxed setting, and one that she had gotten used to.

Which, really, just made his absence that night all the stranger. She glanced at the clock - 11:47 - nearly two hours later than he usually got in. She sighed, and stood up, deciding that it was really getting ridiculous and that she ought to get some sleep when the door burst open, revealing a battered and bruised James Potter.

She rushed to his side, pulling out her wand to stem the flow of blood from a particularly nasty gash on his forehead. "Merlin, Potter, what happened?" she asked, as she siphoned off some of the mess.

The boy swatted her hand away, grinning. "You should see the other guy."

"Potter, this isn't funny. You're hurt. What happened?"

The grin was threatening to take over the boy's entire face. "Au contraire, Evans. It's hilarious." He gestured at his face, before explaining, "This, my lovely Head Girl, is the result of one Peter Pettigrew, kept from true love by his dastardly, trouble-making friends."

Shocked, she stopped cleaning. "Come again? Pettigrew hurt you?"

"Peter tried to sneak Sirius some love potion, but got the cakes mixed up. We had to keep him from jumping on some Hufflepuff sixth year and proposing using a metal bit he popped off his omnioculars, and I sustained a couple of injuries in the process." He rubbed his jaw, before adding, "Somehow, that boy developed a mean right hook. S'like his hand is made of metal or something."

"Never a boring moment with the Marauders, hmm?"

He put up his hands defensively. "Guilty as charged." He patted his face gingerly and examined his fingers. They were clean. "Thanks. Why're you still up?"

"I was worried."

He grinned. "What, about me? You shouldn't have, Evans."

She rolled her eyes. "You're Head Boy, I'm Head Girl, I figured if you were out and about this late, it might be trouble. I wasn't totally wrong."

"Ah, yes, well, as I've always said, Trouble is Peter's middle name."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Right, okay, it's 'Polliver,' but he doesn't like having that spread much."

She chuckled. "But everything's sorted? The potion wore off? Did Sirius get as battered as you?"

James rolled his eyes. "As if. The git pulled a camera out of wherever and started taking pictures."

"Think if I ask nicely, he'll get me a copy?"

* * *

Elsewhere in the castle, deep in the dungeons, Regulus Arcturus Black broke a green wax seal and with shaking fingers read what was written on the creamy white parchment. The letter fluttered to the floor, and the boy tilted his head back. He screamed once, screamed until his throat was raw, before falling, weeping, into his pillow. And past the confines of his Silenced four-poster bed, his housemates and the rest of the castle slept on.

* * *

_Aaaaaaand__, __we__'__re __back__. (__Insert __Abed __gif __here__.)_


End file.
